The Annual Empire Awards: Winners, Losers and Favorites

Transcript

you know what's funny is uh we said we'll never do icos again and then we launched icos with pictures plugged into them uh Happy New Year welcome welcome to uh the first uh Roundup of the Year we're not gonna be doing a Roundup we'll get into that in a second but Santi how you doing my friend Happy New Year I'm doing great uh uh really refreshed and up you know feeling optimistic so uh yeah how are you doing I don't speak French what does your sweater say sweatshirt uh it's like uh the the Paris soccer team someone gave it to me as a gift um but yeah I think it says this is Paris uh fairly obvious but yeah I couldn't see the parents I just said I don't even know I'm not you see you know

yeah we'll get into the into one of these things of failure personal failures that I had this year I wanted to uh learn French because I moved from the US and I haven't done that I thought you were gonna say fashion because that was one of your failures but we can we can talk about what yeah well the the the the the folks have made a point on commenting on YouTube about all my uh how terrible i've been on a number of fronts but fashion is certainly one of them so yeah I haven't learned French and I'm terrible at passion so uh a great way to kick off this episode look I'm just on my high horse my uh about once a year my wife tells me that we need to that I need better clothes and I always put it off I'm like I want I don't want to shop I

don't want to spend money on a bunch of new clothes I just don't want to do it and then she finally like pulls the trigger and orders like 30 New pieces of clothes for me and then I try them on and she would she she helps me return them and one of the pieces I got I got this new cardigan so I'm feeling like I'm on my fashion high horse you know I I used to wear a lot of Cardigans I I've got no Tales but I don't know if you can married life coming together I like like it yeah by the way I was walking I was also walking in in Brooklyn over the break and I was like man I haven't got new glasses in like three years so I popped into a Warby Parker and um I tried on glasses that look like the ones

that you have just I was trying a bunch on yeah man I cannot pull off that look no not not my go-to allow me this will be I don't usually goal set for the year uh and I can I can tell you why and I've started stopped doing this for a long time but uh this will be uh intention that I put forward which is I will help you find glasses if you need them I'll help you find all right I will take you up on the on the new glasses so here's what uh here's what we're doing today so uh same same format we're gonna do the same format this year as we did last year once a week we've got a guest episode the other episode of the week that comes out on Fridays is the weekly Roundup same thing first Roundup of the

week is going to be next week this week we are doing something different which is the Empire Awards is that what we're calling him Santi I feel like we need a much better name than that like there's like the webies there's what what's our uh there's the Dundee's what's uh what's our what's our name for this uh I don't know but maybe this is an opportunity to get the some of the hardcore listeners involved and uh uh you know maybe we'll we'll get inspiration from them uh um the Empire Awards yeah then uh then let us know and we'll use it moving forward so so what we want to do so we've basically just there are a bunch of questions that Santi and I talk about like hey what's your craziest prediction for next year like hey what was like your best investment of the year like

hey what was your worst investment of the year or hey are there any new like apps or tools that you're using and we talk about this and um I thought it'd be really fun to make all of this actually public information so hopefully we don't over share too much uh hopefully you guys find this find this uh interesting and not too personal and um I think importantly back to crypto still but yeah and I think this is a great idea from you inspired by some of the feedback that we got from listeners I mean we're going into year two I think uh where people tend to like is when we talk not just about you know industry and business but also more personal stuff and um you know not not like super sensitive stuff but just personal stuff in terms and so I'm more than happy to

share that people don't like it you know um yeah that definitely let us know if we're boring you to death all right man let's get into it so I'm gonna try to break this into like industry uh not just predictions because I think everyone's kind of sick of predictions at this point but like you know uh kind of kind of big topics um within crypto and then also like personal personal topics so let's start with some of the industry stuff um biggest reframe for 2022 in your mind for crypto or not for crypto biggest like mental reframing for you for crypto is definitely the lack of risk management of most crypto service providers for me it was a big surprise and I think it came to a big surprise for most people where you know pretty

much everyone got caught off guard with one particular trade which was a Luna and the collapse of Luna and the contagion effects that that had I think really exposed the fragility of the crypto serve I say service providers because it's a centralized parties that were really caught off guard here uh you know you had Luna then that led to three hours collapse in Genesis and FTX and Alameda and Celsius block five Voyager like the amount of contagion that that had was really distorted with Luna um and I think that was a big I think caught a lot of people off guard and sets the tone for 2023 and going forward yeah or if they had this or if they did have good risk parameters in

place it was they were all the same risk parameters like they basically all tumbled the same way um like yeah so that's a all right I think that's a good one mine was um I had I had two here one is uh uh I think that just from having worked with maker a little bit and uh this is the first you know I've been a recognized Delegate for I think it's been maybe five or six months now my takeaway from that is that Dows need internal leaders I think that what you're doing with the Dow is you're putting software in place to automate a lot of things it's I think it's just an extension of like this like you know software's eating the world I think that davs are kind of just an extension of that um and that like that what Dows do is

they automate a lot even even more processes than SAS businesses do but what has become abundantly clear to me having done season two of belker which was all about Dows having worked inside maker for a little bit is that Dows need internal leaders I'm not saying you have like a CEO of the Dao but much like more defined internal leaders because what that does is um when things don't go well you know it's like hey that that person is responsible for that so it puts responsibility on things and then I I think people are probably sick of hearing me talk about this at this point but I got really scarred by um I think the second reframe is uh that brand nfts like corporates doing nfts might actually be a real thing

um and I've been incredibly skeptical on that for a while and I've started to change my mind on that so yeah I think just commenting on the first point which I think is a great observation not just in crypto but generally given the trans the The Innovation that we're seeing in AI is this tendency yes we can innovate we can automate a lot of things but humans still play a central role in in certain functions and uh you can't collapse hierarchy software yeah rules the world but yeah code is law but you still need human intervention there's still a place for humans to interact with technology uh I think and so yeah because AI is now all the rage but I think there will be the role for advanced like human skills is even going

to be greater in how to manage this technology and including like working with tiles and stuff all right next next big reframe this is a non-crypto one I think uh I I have a feeling you'll disagree with me here I've come to the belief that Angel Investing is not a good way to make money um that could be the part of the market that we're at like that could be a very bear Market take but I think I did I think I made 12 or so somewhere between 12 to 15 Angel investments in 2022 and this year has just shown me how difficult it is for a startup to really hit it big and um and for your angel portfolio to really make good returns

um so so a couple things that like let me just I'll play this out a little bit if you look at some of the companies that like let's say you Angel invested in some of the best companies in crypto like flashback a year and you're like I have an amazing portfolio I invested several years ago in bitco circle block fi like on paper the companies that have done it incredibly well so what happens is I think there's just like a lot of ways that these companies can not give you liquidity do really well but still not give you liquidity for example Circle wanted to IPO then the market [ __ ] the bed so they haven't iPod yet or done their spec or whatever they were going to do um what's another one uh blockfi block fi was like this darling company was Raising it like three or four or five

billion dollars obviously block five's falling apart another one bitco bitco if you had Angel invest in them you would have waited several years and then you get this amazing return when they sell for like a billion or 1.2 to Galaxy but now that deal has fallen apart right so it's just shown me um how like how important the hey how tough it is to make a return B how um I think I underweighted the illiquidity premium um and like not having put a lot of capital into these companies means less capital in a bear Market to you know buy Ethan a thousand bucks for example so I think I underweighted that um and I also yeah yeah those are that's my

that's my reframing uh I think I would have told you that exactly that same observation law cycle because that was a theme for me where I had so many liquid Investments and Mis mispricing the liquidity premium twenty Thirty forty percent however um and so I think I would put I would definitely push back um that Angel Investing or just early stage investing is not like a good strategy um I think the sample size is going to be tricky like the cohort of companies that you're investing into the value entry points you know is gonna it's gonna matter a lot uh I think your sample size is a bit skewed to centralize players in crypto

um which goes back to the point of liquidity right because you could also have invested in you know for me early stage is also buying certain tokens at a valuation that resembles early stage you know and I think that uh you don't you have liquidity there um you also that I think that the time for a company to go public and get liquidity in traditional in traditional Venture and certain part pockets of Venture as of crypto like you know block fi and you know and some other players um you know getting liquidity is tough but in crypto is sort of like a weird asset class where you can get liquidity much faster right yeah if you investments from projects and you can use that token you don't necessarily have to sell it

but you can use it you can stake it you can borrow against it and so that is one of the Key Properties I think of this asset class which is historically you know I think there was a point where Venture traditional Venture the time to exit time of liquidity was much compressed than where it is now um but crypto allows you to have much more liquidity so yeah I I don't think it's dead for what it's worth I'll continue to do it but I do think that managing capital and cash flow to be able to invest like for instance as you said an eighth of a thousand is really important yeah I think um like I'm just thinking about how many kind of deals I want to do and how much Capital to deploy into these Angel deals in 2023 and one thing that's very clear

to me is that I still I'm still so new to the Angel Investing game I think probably I think I maybe did two or three Deals in 2021 like 12 or 15 in 2022 I'm not good I've I know this about myself so far or just I I don't know like each time I would make an investment I would write down like I think this is going to do X I think like the time frame is here I think here's why it'll do well those were not correct like I was pretty all over the place in my I don't have a good understanding yet of of uh like yeah the thing is like I'll tell you truth most I I do go back and say some of my best investments felt really uncomfortable not obvious

and as you said totally missed my I always do like a downside case base case upside case yeah and I can tell you the ones that seem more obvious clean bets were not the ones that were more uncomfortable just surprised me both upside and outside and I think the key though is like I think we obsess a lot about it hasn't been a good investment so when you ask the question it's difficult because you have to sort of take a snapshot a point in time um and and what could be a terrible investment might turn out to be a fantastic investment you know in the next two three years and so the key is just being patient and the best exercise that I've done is just understanding that these things are

going to take time and if you're not positioning yourself to be very patient and wait like five years ten years then you're you're likely going to put yourself in a bad situation where you're going to be forced to sell or or eager to sell um and so it is very tricky to to like do that observation especially at this moment in time where you take a snapshot and everything's down considerably yeah and so um you know it's sort of like a par it is very much so a power law distribution I play the game I think of it in probabilities like okay if I'm investing in a cohort of 50 companies I just know that it's going to be one or two to really carry the day uh and really make up for all the losses but it's tough though I think where it

got tough for me is like I don't I basically you know peanut butter spread or whatever the right word is like if I took x amount of capital and I invested in 10 companies I just kind of took x divided by 10 right whereas where like if I do other Investments I would never do it like that I'd be like I have more conviction here so I'm going to put more but anyways I wanna I wanna move through these so what was yours yeah what was your uh biggest reframe for non-crypto I think generally it is this idea that you have to dance while the music is playing but you have to really make sure one where the exit is and how big that door is hmm uh and I think it ties back to Luna for instance like Luna could have worked

there's a couple of reasons where it's a scenario where Luna could have worked if they had perhaps Diversified the treasury better and the market hadn't shifted as much the problem was that the size of the people in that party grew from one to a hundred the size of that door didn't and so that has a whole host of problems and I think it emphasizes a broader point that I think we're going to see going into 2023 is it really exposes exposing Market fragility when there's lack of liquidity and you saw that kind of in the UK during the mini budget like you know Pension funds were scrambling to sell assets to cover kind of liabilities uh could the guilt Market just kind of basically shut down overnight and it was really like

interesting to see that because we're used to saying and thinking that yeah crypto markets are fairly very underdeveloped but I think we're going to start to see where things really break when when you're in a different Market environment that you haven't had in the last 12 years so for me that's a big reframe it's like people still need to allocate capital they're kind of forced to as asset managers but um it's this idea of just being perhaps more Nimble when you're thinking like you could have set in November 2021 markets coming down in crypto you said okay yeah like rates are going up and then just like being really it's

sort of this tension that you have in one end you want to be a long-term investor and another you're seeing some profound changes that haven't happened in the last 12 years you're hearing folks like even as late as like the Summer where most people are like you know we've seen a pretty pretty big move from and stands and rate hikes since March that was that was still early like you could have like exited the market then and so it's it's I think it goes back to the episode with Eric Peters which is survival and sometimes you could just go years without doing anything but the most important thing and he said something that is really for me it was really an eye-opener it's just such a simple framing of it which was you can't even be lucky when you're dead you can't even

buy a lottery ticket when you're dead and so I think that's a big you know you count your blessings going into the year if you're if you're in this position where you have some capital um but being very I think nimble is something that has been a big re kind of a reset reframe for me I like that one favorite project or business of the year no surprise I mean folks have heard me talk about this and none of this is look there's certain bias because I'm an investor in some of these companies all speak from experience because the project I'll frame it as the project I spent the most amount of time last year I was going through this question is oblivion I've been the longest standing council member there

um and coming off of purify I I was very I still am very bullish on the on the gaming category and so like thematically my favorite kind of theme is is gaming I think it's making crypto relatable we'll make it mainstream we'll be the Catalyst next cycle and you know there's certain games that have come a long way you know when I first was a c did the seed run for luvium in like December of 2020. you know they've gone from zero to 100 50 developers artist Gamers uh sorry designers so the team's grown a lot they've launched and they've executed on the roadmap pretty impressively and what is really interesting is kind of this their big opening like building in the open and the way that they've launched the L like they've launched the Auto

battler game and then they launched like land nfts now they're about to launch the game where you know mobile and desktop or people can you know develop that land and sort of they're building in the open but also maintaining a certain level of centralization of the team getting the community involved and I think it's it's going to be a blueprint for other game studios out there trying to like navigate and enter into web threes so for me I'm just excited you know about the way that I think it's going to be a good example of of how to develop a web 3 game and and also a reminder you know games take a lot a long time to develop and so it's just been very interesting to see how the community sometimes has been

frustrated that they haven't moved fast enough and you know it's just sort of this tension uh but for me it's been just a very rewarding experience of being involved and seeing how all this is kind of shaping up and I think this year is going to be people are going to increasingly understand how the different kind of three different games uh that alluvium is building or stitching together quite nicely you know integrating nfts and you know from from like catching like cards like Pokemon to lands like Sim City and then building them all together and then Auto battling and leveling up so I think the the like the games come together quite nicely so for me it's definitely yeah Kieran just messaged me today actually I think it sounds like they

have a big announcement coming out this week so um all right mine was actually the blockchain association which I have there's another category like breakout companies maybe we can move into that where I have maybe more of like a crypto native answer but I think this was a year where the regulatory side of things actually could have gone really poorly especially if Sam's bill got pushed forward faster than it it did if things maybe didn't get slowed down before we have um uh uh well well the Dem still owned both the Senate and the house um I think things could have like looked really differently at this time um if there weren't folks like coin Center but also really the blockchain association uh going to Bedford and for crypto and really being the voice of

crypto in DC so I think this was a pretty important year for um this was a year when I think a lot of folks in DC could have really got a black eye by crypto and I think they did but I think we have we have the blockchain association on our side really going to bat for crypto so I'll give them a call out yeah definitely by the way the senator that was pushing the bill the SPF Bill resigned today I believe oh wow I missed that yeah yeah um crypto person of the year I struggled with this um but I did say I actually said Ryan Wyatt from polygon um so he came over I think he was running YouTube's get like gaming studio or

something like that or maybe so I think he was running YouTube's gaming studio if you just look at the polygon deals that they've closed this year it's like polygon has brought in DraftKings Adobe the NFL Liverpool Starbucks Adidas Prada uh Walt Disney I'm sure I'm missing others Facebook um stripe like Instagram like they brought they brought in all these huge kind of traditional institutional Brands web 2 players into crypto and um things haven't really happened with that so far but I'm I'm optimistic that in 2023 those Brands actually do something so yeah I'll give a shout out to Ryan there definitely for me it was very clear the the ethereum developers working on the merge

um sometimes so like Tim baiko Justin Drake Raul Jordan among others there's a great article that just covers and profiles like eight of them but it was a huge overhaul and people forget but it's been you know years in the making and I think these guys have been very consistent and patient and uh so kudos to them because I think the merge was I think one of the more important developments of crypto history the ability to really show people that is such a distributed decentralized system can agree and make such a big transition uh kind of this analogy of building an airplane uh while in Flight uh certainly the airplane is an important you know

and carrying a lot of passengers and so I think these guys really carried are very stressful but important role and uh the merge for me was one of the more will I think go down as one of the more fascinating important Milestones of this industry uh if we look back in the next 10 years I would say not just this industry one one thing that was interesting about when the on the day the merge happened is you had folks from kind of just like very respected software people commenting on how impressive this big open source development really was like you know the Collison Brothers at stripe you had Toby from Shopify and um pretty OG like Linux people just commenting on how how tough it is to actually push this through so all right that's a great answer I like I like your answer a lot

um breakout companies of the year or breakout company of the year um who'd you say here I'll start with the theme uh I think crypto are you doing 20 20 22. well I guess I have both but I'll do 2022. and then you can do 2022. 2022 for me was thematically I think crypto became much more relatable mainstream for people finally kind of for me and I'll notice for me it was just easier to explain further and I had people actually come to me for like an invite for step in and or thinking about nfts and you know nft has been around for a while but I think certainly like 2022 was a year where people like you had you know a lot even the nfts and

lifestyle apps early ones in their beta form like step in or eluvium Auto Battle or whatever um and and also as you alluded to normal Brands really entering the fold and so for me thematically that was like a breakout theme uh the company that I picked again I'm biased because I'm an investor and I'm an advisor so full disclosure and under this advice or financial advice or whatever is step in and it was really interesting because they launched in December I guess technically of 2021 in 2022 they're only in their beta form but I think they become very quickly a number one app and I had people that have been historically very skeptical on crypto ping me and say hey can I get an invite code because I want to you know I'm

running marathon I don't forget about that period of time when there's a bunch of like a lot of the web 2 people like big web 2 people are non-crypto folks for like let me get a step in code let me get a step in code yeah you know and you know I think look there are criticisms now especially you know of you know the in-game economics and this play to earn I think is a misnomer and you know it's not a perfect app uh they're working hard on and we had a great episode of Beyond from from stepping here so people should go to it but uh yeah for me it was I think an app like step in is breakout in the sense that it made crypto very relatable especially for people that historically have been very skeptical and it's this idea that we're

going to come out of this bear Market putting macro on the side it's going to be because the bar to acquire a user in crypto has gone up meaningfully given all the blow-ups this year and so it's really puts the pressure on the industry to deliver beautiful apps that without a question you're going to be using because you stop using post when you had email you have to stop using you know the train when you could fly it's the same the bar is really high and so I think um you know it it's uh it's good frankly it weeds out a lot of [ __ ] and it and you know I think you have to deliver a beautiful app or a product and so uh Stefan I think gave us early indications

of what that might look like uh for other companies my brain I have two breakout companies of the year and it's tied around two of the biggest themes of the Year staking in Mev and those are two areas of crypto that could have been very just centralized with like like to run it to run an e-validator node for example you need 32 eth you need a computer system with high quality CPO uh CPU you need like operational knowledge to run a validator node you need I think you need approval from the network um which has like a long way I I think you need that I'm not I'm not entirely sure actually um so then the other the only the other uh option would be like kind of staking through a centralized exchange like uh a coinbase or binance or whoever Kraken

offers it after their uh acquisition of staked lydo came onto the scene and unlock the ability for people to do for first teeth right and it was like and anyone so I think Lido helped to like um not decentralized staking but like give more people the opportunity to participate in staking so I think Lido and then it's a collective of validators that are approved by a kind of a collective group but uh and then on the on the muv front I would say I mean flashbots right like flashbots you've got Mev as like nap people are figuring out is like the one of the best ways for blockchains to monetize uh and

flashbots builds these tools to make Mev accessible to users who otherwise might be maybe technical uh technically or like financially uh and able to participate in Mev and it just makes the process more transparent so you've had I don't know how much money probably at this probably at this point billions or over over a billion I would assume has been extracted through Mev using flashbots and um uh yeah so big big shout out to both flashbots and Lido my breakout company for 2023 I just I think that staking continues to get bigger in 2023 and um like leveraging each security to continue building on the network will get bigger um how I it's tough for me to say like one company I think in the predictions I

talked about unit swap I think uniswap who had kind of a quiet year in 2022 will have a big year in 2023 but that feels like a boring answer so my answer is actually a less known company which is eigenlayer I'm not an investor I have no part I've never even talked to their team actually they're coming on the podcast soon which will be the first time I've ever talked to them but I think this year you're going to see a lot more innovation in like eth staking as capital is going to want more secure forms of yield um and I think what eigen eigenlayer is doing from my understanding is like particularly Innovative staking project where they provide um like security as a service to like Roll-Ups and bridges and oracles um and it allows those projects to

leverage eth's stake security to supplement or like complement the security um that's provided by their native token so um I think they're launching I think restaking the restaking protocol the first like middleware using the restaking mechanism called eigen da data availability I think it is anyways I don't that that's my like kind of farther out there prediction so what do you think about breakout company in 2023 I didn't have one purposely I do have like overlooked verticals Innovations and crypto going on right now uh did I purposely skipped this one maybe we should talk about like the unsexy businesses of the Year 2022 2023. go for it um more of an interesting question for me it's this uh I'm not actually an investor here uh but I do think it's

going to be a big thing for this idea of credentialing and gatekeeping of crypto front-ends is going to be pretty pretty important uh identity nfts that comply that kind of a test to kyc AML I think is going to be very important um you have a company like barata that is kind of ish minting you a nft once you've kind of gone through uh verification process um and I think that really opens up to something you said just now where uniswap is going to have like a pretty pretty good year but it's a boring answer look D5 is a boring sector has been for a while um the yield farming days that we're fun are gone but a lot a lot of foundation

is there and so I think uh I think the central like permissioned D5 is going to be a thing permission nonsense like anyone can interact but I think trust I'd rather frame it as trusted pools of liquidity are going to become the primary liquidity venues in defy you're you probably will continue to have like this like non-trusted but trusted I mean everyone in the pool is Kayla seed has a barata nft or some sort of nft and that really I think opens up one I think it's going to marry nicely with some whatever regulatory guidance we're going to have going forward um and two um I think it really will we're going to see D5 research at some

point it's not dead um I think the recent blow-ups have further solidified the reason of existence of defy where it thrives where it doesn't Thrive you know Capital efficiency has always been an issue probably will always be an issue but maybe the trusted pools of liquidity you kind of solve a lot of the a lot of the things that you know a lot of people are critical of D5 particularly Capital efficiency I think really gets solved once you have trusted pores of liquidity where JPMorgan can I rap with Goldman where I can interact with you Jason I know the counterparty very well um in this pool you know an amm or you know money market like Ave and so I

think that is going to be I think D5 continues to be unsexy but shines again um and and you know I think uh you need in order for this to work you need trusted pools of liquidity and I see identity nfts uh really important kind of front and center in unlocking that nice I like that answer um my own sexy business of 2022 I have two answers one is coinbase because coinbase got a ton of [ __ ] for like not being crypto native enough and like just kind of being this like boring business when if you remember like back in the Raging Bull Market that they were getting pushed by like the crypto Community kind of turned on coinbase

um and so I'll just say like they've just like stuck to their Lane and built and like I'll give I'll give coinbase a shout out I will also give a shout out to um unsexy businesses of the Year anyone who didn't chase this like wild venture-backed narrative that we've been on for the last decade um so bootstrapped profitable businesses I've got a soft spot for them um I will also say you mean like you mean like block works yeah but there's a lot of other good ones out there I have a sauce I mean that's why I thought in the heart I think I think it was tough honestly I think at some point you would have gone approached by a lot of people wanted to

give you money thank you yeah all the time I'm sure you get all the time yeah how did you like navigate that did you ever look back and say gosh if we don't do it we're gonna be at a disadvantage and we gotta like put feelings that's why I have a lot of respect for someone like coinbase because when you see other companies who are your direct competitors built like doing something crazy like hiring hiring like crazy or something like that it's very easy to get fomo looking at competitors and I mean during the bull market Mike and I definitely had that right looking at some competitors who like we we know their business models inside and out just like you know Brian knows knew the FTX business inside now because you're building the same thing as them or

something very similar so we know the business models of all the other crypto media companies very well and when we have the same amount of employees they have the same amount of employees but then they grow by 400 and we only grow by 20 we're like hmm some something's going on there so there's use like I think it's easy to get a lot of fomo and start chasing after competitors um but yeah we I mean yeah we just I I think in general it doesn't make sense for media companies to raise capital until they have on maybe until they or unless they have a product that sits at the bottom of the media funnel then it then it makes sense to consider it at least so

yeah so um on sexy business of this year I think that one thing that came up in the Colleen and Peter Brevin Howard episode that Launches on uh on Monday is custody and exchanges separating excuse me custody and settlement finally starting to separate from centralized exchanges so what we call an exchange is in crypto is um it's really a brokerage it's an exchange it's a custodian it's a clearing and settlement provider it looks very different in traditional Capital markets I think there are a couple companies that are going to do really well from that uh separation Anchorage fire blocks copper right all of these like unsexy

uh Capital markets providers institutional Capital markets providers for crypto though like especially those three there's other ones who bitco I'm sure will do well too like those are kind of unsexy businesses that are probably going to do really well as regulation comes out and stuff like that all right um what I'll throw one at you do you want to do wildest prediction for 2023 or highest conviction bet for 2023. it's the same actually all right for me it's the answer is the same um I think ethereum flips Bitcoin uh you know this has been people might say this is a very like Normie answer you know you're roughly at 45 dominance right now and I just think the narrative for Heath

has really solidified um with the merge there are some issues with centralization I get it but um I do think that you know I'll just give you a data point so eth and Bitcoin are down exactly the same five percent from our all-time highs this cycle last cycle so 2017 2019 ethos down like 95 Bitcoin is down 80 percent um you know it's not the only reason and the only thing I look at but I think that's indicative of the the resiliency of eth of ethereum's network and you started I started to observe that the the folks coming in I think really I struggle with bitcoin's narrative

um because it's not a hedge really against inflation it's not really a macro hedge I think really smart macro guys don't don't put on this trade um finally I think you know it's sort of been we'll give you the benefit of the dial because we hadn't been through a recession and we're going through one now and this is just behave like a risk on asset can it become a digital goal in 100 years most likely but is this going to take time and I just think the look even if it becomes digital world it's 8 trillion Market the sediment layer the internet is much bigger than that and I think eth has really come out strong in that uh and

and I think a use case is like you think about we've had this discussion before like I'm not ecamaxia I I do like Bitcoin in some capacity but I think the reason for me to hold Bitcoin is just it's not there I do need to hold ease for a number of reasons it's like uh I use it and it's important for me and uh you know I stake it I can get a field and I pay for gas and so I I do think that the inner recovery uh you know eats really outperforms Bitcoin to a point where if it doesn't flip it it comes very very close to flipping it and my best highest conviction bet we talked about early stage investing I do think that like outperforming the

majors particularly ethereum is really hard very hard over a long term Horizon medium long-term Horizon and I arguably think it's like the best risk adjusted bet if you're gonna allocated crypto I think for me going back to your opening line of I'm doubting if Angel Investing is really worth it my benchmarks always is this going to outperform Eve and and like applying like a sharp ratio and like thinking okay when I say risk adjusted it's a very nebulous Financial like metric because how do you think but I just think about it from if I make an investment and like you know the liquidity component the you know this idea that a team I just closed

shop and you know might be you know it has all the risks of an early stage Venture and team building and what have you like ethereum has just grown into this thing that is is executing working it's not perfect but I think it just gives you really for me it over time it's harder and harder to justify making an investment rotating eth into that uh and so yeah you know I think I think ethereum is a very clean bet on the industry um and the industry's growth I need to think about that one I um it's funny being on so we've got this

Empire podcast I also sit in and sometimes co-host um the bell curve podcast with Mike um and the other we do another Roundup with uh Vance and Michael from framework and they're both Uber eat bowls so I've been inundated with you Michael and Vance uh spit and eat narrative yeah um my leg maybe my pushback would just be that in the last bear Market Bitcoin was that thing where it was like you just like every everyone was like like Bitcoin was what you are saying today where it's like no if-ans or Bots like Bitcoin is the Bitcoin is the only thing like you have like you put your

whole portfolio in Bitcoin and like you will make it um and uh I don't know it didn't really turn out that way all right maybe here's here's my question for you what would make you change your mind like what would make you reconsider that I think because there's something with the app chain thesis something with another L1 something with things getting built on Bitcoins like is there any development two things developers the number of developer activity meaningfully shifting away from ethereum like seeing top developers top teams leaving could be part of the option thesis like building on Cosmos like dydx if I see another 20 dydx is leaving ethereum departing ethereum and moving to another chain or building they're on

we talked about vertical integration for instance like an app building their own chain then that could be one and the second one is this censorship of transactions becoming a a really big issue if that happens I think we have a more existential question crisis in the industry because that would probably mean that they like shut down and make Define possible and it's really a full blown out in that tail risk that we always have had in crypto which is there could be a version where when you try to separate money in state or become make it more decentralized there's going to be people that are not going to be happy

about that and can make your life still can make your life very very difficult and I think that you know tornado Constitution was something that I think was I understand the motivation why it happened we had a great discussion with a few two podcasts touching on this but people I think over were were pretty paranoid of of this censorship component and you know what I mean by that is a lot of validators are in you know a place like the US and you know the US government could say Hey listen you know you're validating a transaction of a known Enemy of the State hmm that that's not you know that's that's an issue right so we're going against OPAC uh and so it says gun was

doing trade with Iran or North Korea not you know that's not legal and so yeah I think it's that would probably give me pause and I think that further shifts the pendulum back to okay Bitcoin doesn't have this issue here's a bet I'll make for 2023 is that that maybe would fall into the bucket of like a non-eth maxi um type thing is uh I think a tier one D5 protocol this year will launch its own chain um and I think we're going to see I think we're at the well compound try to compound tried it with polka dot and it didn't yeah didn't work didn't work out talk about it talk about a project that we haven't talked at all this year like you control F

polka dot polka dot not yeah I mean EOS but polka dot yeah yeah polka dot blew I think a massive opportunity but so like compound tried to build their own chain from my understanding and they did it with polka dot and it was like colossal headache and they dropped it if they had chosen Cosmos I just wonder what like the I think the app chain thesis would be a lot stronger and I think the app chain thesis I mean we're doing season three of bell curve on the app chain thesis like I think we're I think it'll be a narrative this year so anyways that's a that's a thought let's move past it um yeah most overlooked do you want to do most overlooked vertical in crypto yeah let's cover that quickly let's cover that quickly yeah um okay uh eip4844

this is um really sets a stage for scaling I think you know we're all excited about zero knowledge proofs and Ezekiel Roll-Ups and everything but I think Roll-Ups in the short and medium term possibly even longer term uh are really kind of a very trustless scaling solution for ethereum and I think that EIP 4844 will really help you know continue to push the ecosystem to ethereum ecosystem towards Roll-Ups um and uh you know for context I mean I don't know how much you want me to go to 4844 if you could go read about it I'm just excited for there to be clubs Big Blocks I mean it's just a great I love that word I'm pumped I'm a big thing

maybe great great words behind great Proto dank sharding with parrot blob carrying transactions man okay I mean it's just such a funky but great word yeah so yeah I mean roll up these considerably down right everyone talks about at some point L2 it's a limitation point um and I've had this discussion with teams like arbitrom and it's scroll and others and we've had on the podcast around hey is there a time where an L2 just hits a a threshold a limiting capacity um but I think this Innovation eip4844 really opens like gives further runway for an altitude incredibly support I

mean I don't know the number I've asked this a lot to a lot of devs like what is that number is it billion how many billion users how many uh volume of transactions would this allow for and open up but I think it's meaningful and and I think it coincides if this goes through it would really just marry nicely in terms of timing of potentially seeing continue to see more lifestyle lifestyle apps people coming in and trying to play a game or you know buy nfts or whatever interacting some sort of metaverse they're just hyped up by yoga Labs or whatever so yeah I think this is a key piece of innovation I like it my most overlooked vertical uh innovation in crypto right now I actually had an answer that ties back to what you were saying earlier

um which is I said I wrote like a combination of like nfts as cookies like digital identity projects and which kind of combines into one thing which is like your your wallet being your home for all things digital not just crypto like I think we think of wallets today as like where I store my crypto assets I think then it becomes like where I store my crypto assets and like my jpegs and like you know maybe better and like more fun way to use and then it becomes like just my home for my digital identity home and passport credentialing system yeah and I just think the wallet like metamask has never had a real competitor and this is the year they get real competitors so I think we'll see the you know we went from The Exchange Wars of 2017 to the the L1 Wars of 2020

2021 into the wallet Wars of 2023 2024 and you've heard me talk about this before but I think that's a an overlooked sector that I think you know when we we used to overlook other l1s uh and now and now l1s are huge I think we'll we'll think about wallets in the same way by the end of the year absolutely um most overhyped thing in crypto right now surprisingly I'll say like utility nfts and the metaverse in the sense that like I want to make a distinction like I'm very excited about games I do think that nfts as we're seeing them just in their current form like art is pretty cool but I struggle when teams like kind of confuse and try to like promise that they're

gonna build and metaverse and you know bring utility like like you go and buy art it's because you like it you don't expect that art to do pretty much anything other than like be visually appealing and convey something to you for this reason I think just punks have a very clear and defined role in that in the art nft scene but I think that like a lot of projects in the art nft scene will go through this identity crisis uh of just saying yeah I don't think we're going to be able to build a metaverse here and and then it becomes really kind of difficult so I think it's a very hyped um

a very high kind of because we're seeing a lot of activity in nfts but just be very clear my best advice is to be very clear on what you're doing and like building a metaverse with a team of 20 people is very look at Facebook I mean it's very impossible yeah I mean like look Facebook is probably gonna shut down their like whole metaverse initiative it's gonna be weird because they rebranded to meta but I think for the reason they're gonna get so much pressure uh it's a reminder that it's gonna take a lot of time to build metaverse so yeah you know what's funny is uh we said we'll never do icos again and then we

launched icos with pictures plugged into them there we go uh what was yours uh board Apes I think it is absurd that the price of that uh Apes still have a 75 eighth floor I think um people people bought Apes primarily because all these celebs were buying board apes and now it's come out that like the celebs had been gifted these apes and that they had no interest in the Apes and that that is basically just like a sponsorship deal I mean it'll go down as one of the best sponsorship influencer marketing deals of all time that I think I think is moonpay who uh who middlemanned a lot of those deals and like I just think you know if the if it was like I've been to a Doodles party it's pretty fun I

went to like a uh a punks event or like an event where there's like mainly people with punks it's pretty fun like good people like real crypto ogs the Doodles people were just like honestly I describe as like Good Vibes just like friendly good people trying to get along I went to a board Eight party it was awful it was just like cringe like I was like oh man like you I don't like you as a person and I don't like you like repping the industry and it's just really cringe and I think like when I see someone with a board ape now I'm like as your profile picture it's a negative connotation in my mind I'm like that is a oh like that's a great story yeah it's pretty and I think it's a pretty cringe thing so I I just think I think board apes are wildly overvalued

right now so this was one of my terrible predictions of the year right if you people might even call in 2022 I said the the floor for for punks the floor for board Apes is never going to be higher than than punks is the size it will be but you know still the the floor for punks now is like 62 so it's below like board Apes yeah still so yeah yeah um okay business you want to see built in 2023 crypto or non-crypto or you want to skip cover quickly because I do want it I don't think it will be built for one particular reason but insurance by default if D5 is going to work I think we need to have insurance by default when you're depositing an Ave when you're borrowing when you're minting a die just give me insurance by default just

wrap it in there um but I do think it needs to be an uncorrelated like off-chain player for it to the issue with insurance historical encrypt has been scale because of the court and on-chain solutions to struggle with correlation risk but I think at some point maybe not this year this could be a big opportunity to build an insurance it's primed for that because you have a lot of data on chain for an actuary I a Sam Savannah to like underwrite the risk foreign but the problem is that the premium you economically doesn't work now when D5 yields are lower than treasuries it does work when you're farming a 20 apy and you can clip a five percent premium on that and then so the net yield is 15. it doesn't work when it's like two percent and treasury is at five

just well not the risk is you cannot make this business work today it's just wishful thinking so I said baked in insurance so there you go boom we got one for what it's worth we did not share this I was waiting time all right um Sandy what's the best investment you made time or money this year last year really uh thinking critically about time my time where I spend my time like like freeing up a lot of my calendar to be able to have as much open time to think or try to think no I mean because I came off of like D5 summer and

you know I just sometimes I like I took time to travel uh and I had the opportunity to go to Africa and for me it's like really interesting like animals rest like 80 90 of the time and and I think they and then that 10 where they go hunting they really like go balls to the wall and I think that I took a lot of learnings from that in terms of there are times where you just need to rest you just need to kind of observe and I think that I had an intuitive feeling that you know the year was just going to be for me it was just I wanted to take time to reflect I was also I mean I was very active still investing in an early stage but I think with a more open mindset of just

observing um I think 2023 is going to be that for me as well um look if you're playing every poker hand it's the surest way to lose uh and it's difficult because as a type a person you always you always feel that compelled to like do more and if you're not you feel like this fear of slowing down like there's a great quote on Phil Knight and shoe dog which says we run because the fear of stopping is just unbearable and you never want to feel not relevant and this industry moves so quickly and so for once I think I allowed myself to yes like still I think be involved but at the same time in how I became involved the thing changed in terms of yes I'm still investing but just observing and a big part of that which I'm cheating here because I'm

moving into another question which is the best thing I did was this podcast and for me the way to express what I think is still feel relevant in this industry as I left parify from like an in a fund into just what am I going to do I think for me it was just this podcast is the most important thing that I've done because I think education is what's missing in this industry I'm by as unbiased just elevating the discourse of discussion is super important and it was just that when I say I don't think I would have been able to feel comfortable taking time off if you will had I not been doing this podcast week in week out hmm

was that your best business decision of 2022 personal yeah like was it the best return no I have another one but you know I mean like but Roi absolutely I like that I have such a that's a pretty deep answer I have a less deep answer uh my best investment my best investment I took it pretty literally was uh of all the angel deals I did only one was non-crypto and it is the bet it is a company called beehive which is it's um but by the yeah it's uh it's built by it's a newsletter company so they're taking on it's basically the newsletter space like at block works for example I think we've used like seven different email providers like send grid and MailChimp and we tried to use

campaign monitor but they wouldn't let us because we're a crypto company we got kicked off MailChimp because we're a crypto company um it like the newsletter landscape is just a nightmare it's like these really old companies um but it's a super important thing like the newsletter is the backbone of a lot of media companies and um so the the guy who ran the the tech team at morning Brew this guy Tyler dank left morning brew and started a newsletter platform like a fort built for the Modern Age Media company and um uh they're just crushing it they're like they're it's a easily like unicorn company and more they're gonna do incredibly well and they already are so my best investment was my only non-crypto investment uh my worst investment was probably

um uh my worst investment was also probably the worst business decision of the Year those are two of the same things um worst investment personally was I held on to a bag of ftt tokens and just like never got around to selling it so you know that's a that's a nice zero um and then the worst businesses decision of the year um foreign answer and then a more real answer the joke answer is we got paid by Luna Luna was going to sponsor permission list and we got paid in UST and the peg broke and we you know Mike and I were talking I think it was down to 80. but we sold at 80 right or something uh I've I forget the actual like what what it was but we

were like oh we'll wait for the price to go back up to like 90 or 95 or something and then we just we we didn't sell it at 90 or 95. so right um like that that was a bummer that was a bummer to have that happen but also it was a big learning for us we ended up hiring a Director of Finance and we put these like we really got that process into shape so that was good I think the other worst business decision was like chasing people to work at blockworks who have big logos on their resume um did not does not usually work out yeah yeah I think that's true uh yeah um what what about you what about what was your worst investment time or well time or money for in terms of an investment a hard investment it

was certainly in crypto there was a few two deals that I won't name but two deals that weren't renegotiated and as an angel a lot of times you know the fund negotiates a term sheet with a fund and then they close like one or two months later or so there was a big very like violent shift in the market in March and the deal there was two deals that I closed in the Summer where I said guys if the Market's just not there like you're you this shouldn't be priced at 50 million or 75 million it's like 20.

I'm gonna say guys it's probably better off that you like like well the lead doesn't want to renegotiate and is it going to be a good investment maybe I mean maybe not depends the large game with the team does but I think that I just look back and personally I I kick myself because it's proud of a it's part of a bigger Trend that I want to continue to do more which is just say no uh as opposed to like and back out and the issue There Was You know I I developed a good relationship with the team before we closed and you know they kind of push me hard to still go through and I said okay fine I lower my check size but then it's like no like if I don't feel the conviction I have a

minimum check size I'm not going to do it and so you know it was I think those two personally I I want to get better I just saying no and I think you know it's a snapshot so it's difficult to say that they're not going to be good Investments on paper but certainly entering entry point I sort of is one of the more if not the most important thing so entering a 75 million is a very different valuation than at like 20. night and day great yeah um what's the takeaway from that just say no yeah I like that okay there's always these times you feel it and then you drag your feet and then

there's all these other things of like you know trying to manage reputation what they're gonna think and you know it's important right reputation no one says they don't care about what other people think is just delusional in a game of investing it's important but still yeah best business decision of 2022 time or money or is that the Empire answer uh it is Empire I'll say another uh which was Diversified Real Estate and other assets like you mean a meaningful way I'd done it before but now like in a more meaningful substantial way and so uh I think uh I'm I'm experiment with real estate I like it um and I think for me it's just uh now do you mean like buying real estate trusts for example are you like buying no no no no like

printing them out and passive income like like a direct portfolio and and trying to spin up what I think could work of capturing a nice clipping a nice yield like not not me doing it but like setting up a team to like manage a property rent it out and I'm I'm kind of excited to see that project go through it's not taking my biggest fear was it's going to take a lot of my time but I found a way to that it wouldn't uh and just I spend more of my time thinking okay we're gonna get the highest cap rate like what are some of the places that like you know could be good rental properties and I'm excited to go into this year because I think you know we're in an environment where a lot of people might be able to like might want to let go of properties

because they're underwater mortgages payments are really high and so um yeah I just like real estate yeah there you go I have a couple friends who got really deep into real estate this year and I think the key is not less about like the price you pay and more about are you able to get yourself out of like the Rental process and create a real worth of passive income so um my best business decision of the year was um finally building a leadership team I think it block works and surrendering control to people who are just way smarter than I am so like if we look back if we look back at this time last year we didn't really have a whatever you want to call it like a leadership team an exec team um now going into 2023 we have a we have

a CTO we have an editor-in-chief we have an amazing Co we have a Director of Finance we have a director of people who starts next week we have a VP of marketing um I really hope I'm not forgiving someone but uh we have a leadership team right that's baked out and it's allowed me to kind of take one step back and honestly all of them are much smarter than I am so and like better at what they do so that was a finally doing that after five years the block Works was a good decision um most helpful thing you started doing in 2022 and why uh people not a surprise podcasting by far Empire like it is for me that one of the more most rewarding things is is how people come

up and say Hey you know I really enjoyed that podcast it allowed me to do X or Y or open my eyes to this and or I do this this is like my weekly Saturday or Sunday running routine or grabbing coffee and uh yeah it's very wholesome to just feel like you know I hope that this has been helpful for people uh you know we're not trying to dispense investment advice to telling you to buy ether Tick Tock an investment um sometimes people want to hear that we're not gonna do that um but yeah it's really rewarding uh it's this idea of like you know feeling relevant uh but also feeling like you're having an impact um and yeah it's been for me really rewarding well now I feel bad if my answer is not Empire

it's uh I also love that fire but um he got married that should have been mine that definitely we'll probably edit this out no problem but yeah listen listen other than getting married um no mine was uh actually getting a trainer in last year so I haven't like you know I've always taken my health seriously but like I never I haven't lifted like heavy weights in like a decade I've kind of a bad back like I just like thought it wasn't really that good for you I got a trainer and he's really pushed me to like as kind of obnoxious and like douchey as this sounds like lift heavy and um it's

just been the best thing for my back for my mood for like personal health it's been yeah I feel better than I've ever felt and so I think what originally seemed like a really expensive investment has paid a lot of paid a lot of billions so yeah getting a trainer um all right we got a couple fun ones that are a little more personal like best habit you picked up worst habit you picked up throw yours out there yeah best habit uh I used to be uh like I stopped running for a while and I just did weights I started running yet again and pushed a friend of mine pushed me to like uh do the New York Marathon and uh I became uh so I'm running now like six days a week have a have a coach because I'm running three marathons this year uh I'm running

London Berlin and New York um so yeah running for me is is walk is meta is so meditating I mean the the feeling that I get is just very liberating um I run with music I love music um but yeah it's you know uh the idea of consistently trading and also like learning how to train has been also really cool like this 80 rule which was adopted by like people started to understand like people started wonder why like the like Russian wrestlers vastly like outperformed and beat us wrestling team in the Olympics was because they they have this 80 training rule which is you never want to train to 100 of your effort it's always

80 and that allows you to one minimized injury and train ever every other day like consistently and the power of compounding uh you know you don't get injured as much and when you show up the rate it's only like two three weeks before a competition when you really push it hard but you know whereas a U.S athlete would have been training for like you know 100 120 days a week sorry a year the Russian athletes would have been training for like 320 or so so it's it's really uh yeah it's been kind of a nice process to to pick back up because I'd missed like just running every every day every other day that's great um best habit that I picked up or that I

continued was um I don't sleep with my phone in the bedroom and that's been really nice I sleep with my phone in my office which so that when my alarm goes off I literally have to walk downstairs and get my phone so I don't snooze so that's been nice and then also um I don't look at my phone in the morning until I don't look at my phone in the morning until after I've come back from a morning walk which is also so it's like I kind of get like an hour before bed and an hour in the morning without a phone and that's been really nice so um also started listening to the like Andrew huberman podcast like bits and pieces like Health guy um yeah that's great yeah exactly they both recommend this thing like sunlight first thing in the morning and I I don't know how much of

it is real but I do that like the first thing in the morning is I walk out get some sunlight and that's been really helpful I like that so that's great uh worst habit I picked up is I just I found myself watching a lot of TV now like basically every night I've stopped I don't read because I'm honestly like white from the day and yeah you know maybe 10 10 30 I'll get into bed or something and instead of reading a book I'll just like I'll throw on TV it's credible I ripped through I watched Friends and I'm watching the office so I'm like I've never watched TV I've never been like a TV person I've never so like honestly all these Michael Michael throw out all these like jokes cultural references they're like jokes from the office and jokes from friends

right over my head so the best thing about this habit is I now finally understand Mike's uh understand Mike's cultural references the bad thing is watching a [ __ ] ton of TV so hey well it's not necessarily that bad um I mean I was thinking about this a lot like I do have things that are like I chew gum a lot like like that's your worst habitant I think you're doing pretty my worst habit but like you know it's like you know like a baseball coach like when they're on TV they have like a massive like I don't know if they're chewing tobacco gum but I'm not like particularly proud of this uh Habit um I don't know man like I I tend to like yeah that actually reminded me I threw a

ridiculous amount of sunflower seeds um right so I I go through I used to go through a big pack of David's sunflower seeds a day which is in WoW which is a horrible amount of salt and so I bought raw sunfl I bought sunflower seeds like a five or ten pound pack of them and I've been uh playing around with making my own sunflower seeds they don't taste as good as Ranch sunflower seeds but that's been been trying to cut that happen Ranch sunflower seeds mine they're so good they're so good all right favorite recurring favorite recurring content of 2022 or favorite individual content what's uh tell me some content you liked talking about newsletters there's one called the diff like the difference the diff uh it's a newsletter covering inflections and

finance and Tech we'll link it in the show notes really insightful pieces like just quirky like topics um and it's one of those newsletters I was looking back I get a lot of newsletters delivered in the mail but this one I deliver on Sunday I open it I read it like uh religiously so uh it's really insightful and so kudos to whoever does it I think it's one of the best newsletters or at least that I've enjoyed I uh I have a couple newsletters I really like and a couple podcasts podcasts I think a lot of people started listening to the all-in podcast with sax and tremoth and those guys I like that one I pledge allegiance podcast is my favorite like non-blockworks podcast um it's a crypto show by the reverie

Team Jacob Donnelly um head of B2B at uh morning Brew B2B media he writes a media newsletter that I like and then also just my favorite like five bullet points on the news for the day is uh a newsletter called news items by John Ellis uh what is it John Ellis is it like 200 followers on Twitter but found this guy got recommended and I like it a lot favorite individual piece of content was this Graham Duncan piece um Graham Duncan said I think he runs a hedge fund uh it was about being a Time billionaire and um we'll link it in the show notes but basically the ideas like Tyler Cohen has this thing about cultural billionaires um right and culture we're so obsessed is the culture with like money we like defy these like dollar billionaires in

that way um Graham Duncan kind of co-opted that term and he's like I think about billionaires um he's like when I was thinking about time billionaires it's when I see sometimes like a 20 year old the thought is that they have like two billion seconds of their life left right A million seconds is 11 days a billion seconds is 31 years right so 31 years billion billion seconds 11 days a million seconds and so it's like you know if you could go to Rupert Murdoch I think is the example Graham Duncan uses who's worth I don't know 20 or 25 billion dollars he's 87 years old what would he pay if he could take the next five years of someone's 20 year old healthy body and healthy mind right what

what what price would they pay um yeah and he explains he's like my he's like as I've gotten older my pricing has gone completely exponential and has gone completely vertical um the record saying like he would pay billions and give up yeah that made me think about time so back 20 years yeah I mean on this point alone like I do think it's like very refreshing I know take a step aside for a bit like as we talk about like what was your best investment and make predictions and like look back in the year like it's been a tough year for most and I just remind myself of like this you talked about a funny thing which says Equinox shut down all like like all like new descriptions on the first of the year because it's the people that probably are not going to commit and churn

I think it was you or someone else that said that yeah I think it's like I don't kind of like this idea where like people like for the first three weeks say happy new year and like set these goals and I just feel that like you just have to do something in like the power of compounding like doing small incremental things that may not feel massive or super rewarding at once will really really compound over time and like I tend to think of like okay how many more let me ask a question how many more years are you gonna have to build blockworks or in your productive life to continue to be an angel investor how many more viewers do you think you're gonna have a lot 30 plus yeah hopefully yeah and so it's like more than 30. yeah yeah

you know I mean like and so it's like I think it's a big part of what Eric says and all these things come together which is like your reputation is the most important thing like you know keep your head down build don't get too ahead of you know narratives or get carried away with stuff and just do the right thing over and over again and I think that will like massively show up over three four years what uh any favorite individual content for you definitely it was uh this sewn sawn conference uh where John Collison the one of the stripe co-founders interviewed Stan drunken milk oh drunken Miller such a good chat oh yeah it was it was such a great conversation and it was right around the supper time I think it was June mid-june right listen to it and

for me it was seeing someone of his caliber come out and say hey we're living on unprecedented times like I'm not and hearing all also his history of how he's dealt historically with ups and downs in his professional career and you know investing um was just really eye-opening it was great to hear his perspective um so highly encourage folks to go and listen to that druckenmiller is probably probably have the best predictions of the last two years he like he nailed the inflation take he nailed what's happened with commodities he nailed impending recession he nailed big laughs coming to Big Tech he nailed I mean if you listen to if you listen to only

drucken Miller and just took his trades and he publicly shared his trades too um yeah he he crushed it yeah I think that with a lot of cash in the summer and said I just don't know what's happening in the world so I'm not trying to be a hero and I've largely kind of adopted that thinking yep um yeah that was a great chat if you had to leave crypto today santu what would you work on it's an interesting question because there have been times over the last like God I don't know how many years I've thought about this and I do have a very clear answer and it would be working on sequencing the microbiome starting a company to do it meaning like if people remember

there we sequence it like DNA like correct mentor and and there was a government that also was working on it and I think it was like a really impactful Milestone to then like develop drugs and like medications and cures for a lot of things like crispr and modifying DNA to solve like rare diseases I'm of the mind that so the microbiome is much more complex because you have way more bacteria in your gut than you have DNA so largely is a computational problem which I think coincides nicely with where we are in terms of Quantum and the ability to process massive reams of data and I've had this idea when I was

working at a health startup like researching aging it was actually during the last bear market and a lot of the best scientists I got to know because we were also working on the microbiome was kind of a key Hallmark of Aging and how your body kind of absorbs new nutrients um and I think a lot of the unsolved medical Mysteries will will be unlocked when we further understand the microbiome and sequence it because once you sequence it then you start saying okay give me a correlation of like how does microbiome look for people that have developed cancer or obesity or you know some other type of disease right like irritable bowel syndrome and I think like most of your nutrient absorption happens in in the microbiome and so if there is deficiency there

I think it has a whole Downstream effects and second order effects into your broader health and how we age and any sort of disease that you might develop further down the line and and so I think that's like a big puzzle that remains unsolved and and I'd look I'm not a scientist so you know people may correct me but it's it's an area that I've been fascinated in with that in nuclear but I think for me like microbiome is is really interesting field and you know in many ways it's a coordination problem because the NHS like in the US you know doesn't really fund you know I was I was there was like 14 of laureates on the board of this company and like they don't really get a lot of funding there's so many topics

that they they just shelf because they don't get and the incentives are kind of screwed and um yeah I just wish to like I think it takes like 100 million dollars to like sequence a microbiome and you basically have to like collect stool samples from every single kind of like culture and like and just like map out like what is a normal microbiome look like how does that inform what you eat um and and your your uptake to different kinds of diet and medications so yeah it's like I'm fascinated by this you're basically dedicating the next 10 years of your life to dealing with a lot of [ __ ] so um good good luck which basically sounds a lot like crypto anyway so it's basically not going to collect like actual [ __ ] thank you well it's funny you've been

thinking about this question I remember in 20 the 2019 like the heart of the bear Market Mike and I having a couple of beers and being like you know this whole crypto thing doesn't work out like what should we do I think I was like I think I think Mike was like I'd want to go work at Netflix I forget what I said I think I was like I'd probably start something I forget the answers but um it's like I like and it's just interesting seeing our mindsets two years later three excuse me three years later four years later I've never once had that thought like in the thought of like if crypto works or not it's it's just interesting like that bear Market a lot of people were like if this whole crypto thing doesn't work out even people like myself who had started a

company in the industry and now nobody even asked that question um and like I've never once it was funny trying to think of like what would I go do because I'm like well I wouldn't not work in Crypt like there's no I think if you understand risk reward today you work in crypto like there's no like there's no other industry I would want to work in so that like it was interesting thinking about this that being said I do have I do have an answer to this which is um basically there are some big topics that haven't caught on um and haven't gone mainstream simply because the narrative is in the wrong is not in their favor and I think the two big ones right now are like probably psychedelics and nuclear so yeah nuclear like the narrative around

nuclear is that it's unsafe but when you actually look at the facts nuclear is just a better source of energy yeah it's like psychedelics too it's like the facts show that psychedelics are can in certain scenarios be really good for you and a better replacement than a replacement to or at least a second option or an alternative to some mainstream like prescriptions but the narrative is incredibly against them now I think that's changing quickly but so I'd probably do something there because I think um yeah I think that's interesting something around personal health would be super interesting too but I I think those are complete money losing businesses and it's like not really in My DNA to go

start a company that doesn't make money for 20 years I I think I'd have to go doing that so there's a couple things um that you just said that are really cool just commenting briefly on uh I think working in crypto and being a part of the industry really gives you a very strong appreciation for narrative formation and the importance of narratives um and yeah I do agree with you like for folks listening it we touch on this like just recently on like you have like how many more years this billionaire like time billion time concept um you know it's for me it was like okay where what I don't know like people might be listening they're much older but like if you're young you just graduated like there arguably isn't a better time in

your life to take like outsized asymmetric risk whether it's nuclear whatever and and it's just like very refreshing like what's your downside and what's a potential upside downside is time but yeah it's like a good way to frame it as you just I think that if anyone my age under like ah this is gonna sound really annoying I was gonna say if you understand risk reward today you work in crypto like the major you should work in crypto the majority of people I think now there are other things like nuclear psychedelics there's some big advancements in healthcare probably that need to get worked on but like pushing a pixel like web 2 has basically become pushing pixels around and like optimizing a landing page from like a

9.8 conversion to like a 9.9 conversion like that's what the SAS industry entails now 10 years ago like go change the world go build SAS companies but now if you work at one of those companies you're optimizing a conversion rate from like 9.8 to 9.9 so yeah by the way anyways one last thing there one last thing there is what you're saying is super important like there is this idea of much less existential risk in the industry yet again we're seeing prices that we saw in law cycle where there was existential risk so the industry feels to me much more de-risked and clearer verticals and use cases with traction behind them uh and so this is why I think it's super exciting like the optimism oh the

industry's so much more dearest this time around it's funny there's um we have our company off site in a week and it's like Mike and I always put together like the opening deck I think for like the company we do like an hour two hour kickoff and we always talk about like where the like ours like State of the Union like where's the industry at and um it's just funny because like I just even though they're like we have a lot of new employees and people who have maybe just come into the industry but like and in their minds it's like holy crap like what did I just get myself into like and in my mind like the industry is so de-risked right now it's so it's such a no-brainer and I'm so confident that things are will return so anyways um favorite app or product that you

started using last year I went back to reading the newspaper uh particularly the financial times like I just went back to I love that yeah that's great you know like there's something you start the day and you get like sunlight for me it just became a nice habit of waking up reading the newspaper and like drinking coffee and I think the financial times has some pretty interesting like I think it's one of the best if not the best newspaper out there they have great editorials like Jillian tet and a few others a few others that are not so good too that are just like constantly like having these very negative takes on on crypto that are not very balanced but uh yeah it's just good too I I I I religiously kind of read the paper each

morning how about you um I started using a an app called clay it's like a personal a personal CRM but I've used I've always wanted a personal CRM that actually worked but the problem with every personal CRM in the past is like whether or not you build it in yourself or in like a notion or something like that or um or like it or or just like there's a software that's built for it they never work I think because they're not Auto populated with your existing Network you have to be like all right I talked to Santiago today and like let me input my notes clay pulls in all your information from everywhere so it pulls in your like it wasn't everything like every message I send anywhere like it pulls into clay

basically and Clay will be like all right like you haven't like hit up this person in a while like but you it seems like you used to like really engage with them and it's actually it's been really helpful and it's really helpful like if I'll go to dinner with someone and then I go to dinner with them like six months later I'm like damn like I don't remember what we talked about at all but I know we had a great conversation it's helpful to go back to that it's also helpful to be like if you go to a new city it auto pop you can just type in like um media people in media people in Austin Texas it'll be like you have 14 you have 14 media people in Austin Texas in your network um it'll be like oh crap I didn't realize this person lives there so like

I went to London for a week in 2022 and I was like crypto people in London I was like oh my God I didn't realize I totally forgot stani is in London like let me hit up stani and it just pulled that in so yeah I like it that's great that's great it's an app called clay um yeah dream podcast guests for Empire this year I like to go first why don't I go first I have um I think I have lame answers I think I have lame answers because like there are people I really want to talk to but then like they also have to tie into crypto um Mark Andreessen is one of them like either mark Andreessen or Ben Horowitz I actually Pro like yeah either one of them I'd really like to have on the podcast um I have a uh CZ I I would like to have

on the podcast I'd like to like there are some questions I have for CZ and I want to get his take on them um I've always wanted to have wences casares who started Zappo he's like not a big name at all I doubt the episode would get many downloads but like I just for me yeah I just respect the hell out of him he's one of the early people who got me like convinced that bitcoin's a real thing I heard him um one time I went to like a JP Morgan event it's probably like 75 like people in the room and they brought him to speak this was a two years ago probably and he has the most articulate vision for Bitcoin that I've ever heard and I know that like we're I think the industry and like we're all getting pretty like Pro eth people are

getting sick of like Bitcoins probably because like the Bitcoin Maxi crowd I would love to have like a Bitcoin conversation with wences um probably something similar with Jack Dorsey I'd love to have Jack on the show just because he's like very Bitcoin Maxi but also like I respect the hell out of what he's built I'd also love to get his take on what elon's doing with Twitter um yeah Barry silbert is another one that came to mind like especially right now so yeah those are some of the names but I'm not like I feel like I'm not I didn't I didn't love my answers for that so what what do you think I I didn't love my answer to this question too uh it ties back to my favorite piece of content I would love to have Stan drunk Miller in the in the Pod getting his refresh

takes on the year uh on the industry um and and just reflecting on since his since I last saw his podcast uh and the other one was Elon like I just I'm curious to talk to him about his strategy Twitter maybe we could have it the ideal would be Elon and Jack in a pod to see how they just talk about and agree disagree and dream big baby yeah that would be that would be nice the ones that you said are also really uh really good so I don't think they're lame but uh yeah what are your I'm sorry business goals for the year or actually if you if you can help us land any of those podcast guests Santi and I

are flying you out we're taking you to dinner dinner actually yeah and one of those people um you wanna start with business goals so here or uh personal goals these are our last two topics uh let's go business and personal all right start it off so you said two to three business schools for the year the first one is uh I want to turn empire into the number one podcast first with crypto and then just generally investing this year I think just in crypto I do want it to be the go-to the when people think of the go-to for getting high quality as unbiased kind of crypto knowledge and content I want the Empire to be synonymous with that and so yes that is I'm very committed to

that because I think education is the most important thing missing this industry where I can help like I'm not a developer like I can't work I'm like zero knowledge proofs but I do think that we can um we have something going here and I'd like to turn that into and I'll see no reason why we can't so so that's one and the second one is really helping particularly my gaming portfolio kind of really launched this year I did a lot of work last year with a few of them step in lubium and others and I want to continue to do that because I just think that gaming is really going to be this email moment of this industry where it just dispels it's like here you go guys like there we go we have a million like this lifestyle

app or gaming app that just blows people's minds off and I think it's just going to take it's going to take one or two games to really like you started seeing like inklings like board ape got a lot of traction but the pro the value the proposition that people need to Shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars and the collection's only ten thousand I struggle with that being that that thing but I feel like we're so close I see it I've been playing these games like I'm seeing how these teams are building and I think it's going to happen in 2023 and I'm really excited for that and and I'm applying as much energy into that in helping these teams kind of

like really go to market um because I think it's going to be super impactful for the industry hmm I like those I can get behind the Empire one that's for sure yeah oh there we go I would uh let's see for I mean a couple block work schools for the year like just continue building the leadership team like would love to have a really really really strong leadership team that has ownership over every like core business line and Department of block works I'm really excited about that just like you know just I I end up learning personally learning a lot from these people and just yeah love working with smart people and excited about that um I'm really excited to build blockworks as brand in the it's a little Alpha leak but in the governance and

grants space so we have some stuff coming um in both governance and grants and um I think people will see more about that in the first first half of this year and we're doing we're really as tough as of uh of a time as it as it is for Dows right now we're incredibly optimistic about Dows and we've built a ton of stuff behind the scenes for for Dows and um and for people who participate in Dallas especially people who invest in Dows and uh we're launching a lot of that this year and just I want to build our brand in the governance and Grant space um because I don't think people kind of associate block works with that so I think and I think that's on me to push that ball up the hill um on that note I want to get uh blockworks research really on the map

like somewhere between 50 to 100 probably closer to 100 like paying companies and funds to our research platform it's 2500 bucks a month Excuse Me 2 500 bucks a year which is like such a wild no it's 75 cheaper than any of our competitors it's such a no-brainer to subscribe to it and it's again just like I don't think it's in front of the right people right now and I think that's on me and some other folks on the team to you know if you to to basically push that ball up the hill and and kick start that flywheel uh I mean it's 208 bucks a month if you can't make more than 208 bucks a month reading our research and platform like you're probably in the wrong business so that's that's one goal

um I want to scale our podcast Network right now we have five podcasts internally like with five like internal like block Works shows um I want to double that to ten I think there are some shows that are missing in the industry like I don't want to actually leak too much Alpha but there's some like really clear podcasts that are missing um and I think like podcasts can be this really nice flywheel like if we have a if we had the if we have another large show like it ends up helping Empire empire can help launch it it helps it helps like grow Empire plug it so like I think that's a really fun thing and then the last thing is just we're gonna host permissionless again and I want to keep pushing I think we pushed the bar on what's possible with with conferences

and I just want to keep pushing the bar and like and build another world-class crypto conference so that's uh in Austin right in Austin this year yeah nice that's cool yeah that's great those are some goals man um all right let's wrap it with the person well that last pedicure I'll show you just on this point how big was block Works in like 2020 2021 like how much what's like your most important kpi like I'm curious how many people you've hired like this year like 2022 and metric um I mean how many people we've hired is not the right metric to look at I'd say because like I think we've never raised

any like outside Venture money and so like that you know if you look at someone like well I won't name there are other crypto media companies that I think will have like are pretty bloated right now so on paper they have too many people in my mind but I won't name names um no like our metrics are like that I look at our like our total audience so like how many podcast downloads do we have across the network how many newsletter subscribers do we have page views is really is also important pages is like a bad it's like not a perfect measure but yeah uh I I look okay on the editorial side I look at page views compared to our competitors because like total page views goes down in a bear so if you set page view targets you'll probably be off um engagement like I don't know if you

use like well no it's page views relative it's our percentage of the market share that we own oh so if you add if you basically take our page views as the numerator and then the denominator is um uh like all the pages of like coindes plus the block plus decrypt and like our our market share percentage that's one of the bigger company goals of the year is like there's a current percent and I wanna increase that correct yeah and then Revenue matters obviously yeah yeah obviously so yeah yeah um personal goals uh I want to link to something that I wrote like in the last bear market around like it's called The Summit I wanna

it ties into one of my goals because I think of like setting the right intention goal setting could be tricky because I think it can lead you to I don't know I'm not a big fan of gold setting but I do have like certain I guess concrete goals if you will um one of them is running us up two hours and 40 minute Marathon my PR is 247 and I want to go below 240 and then hopefully continue to progress uh so I'm kind of committed to that uh I wanna I don't just want to break that and then maybe go down to 230. I'm going on the record so if I don't do it guys well you know all right look at you too I'll try it I'll try uh yeah I'm having

a lot of look as it is I'm having a lot of fun running that's one of the best things I've started doing again this year and you know whether I break it or not but I'll give it a good shot um the second one I really want to go to New Zealand it's one of the few places I haven't been to and I I want to go over to the scene where they film Lord of the Rings and like the Milford Sound and I just think it's like an incredible country I haven't been able to do that because of covid like they shut down and Australia too like I want to do Australia New Zealand I haven't figured out what the best way to do it is like should I but yeah well like I've invested in a lot of projects in Australia and maybe

illuminum does like a festival of conference error this year so I'll definitely kind of do that in tandem but uh yeah I I want to I want to go there probably November December where it's summer there and the last one is I want to go back to long form writing I have a Blog which I haven't uh I haven't published nothing like I haven't published new entries I write some things I never publish um I've been obviously focused on the podcast and like I tweet I guess I should post for a living now um but um but yeah I want to go back to actually I think you said this in one episode but you go you have this habit of like going to like the New York Public Library and like writing I think this idea of writing really has helped

me kind of crystallize process digest a lot of things it's been it's been I think it's going to be one of those years like 2022 2023 it certainly was for me on law cycle where it takes time to process a lot of the things that have happened the world increasingly moves at a faster pace but I think there's value in in writing stuff out in ordering that process and I I enjoyed it I haven't like necessarily found the time in the last two three years well I was focused on doing other things but I think I have the time now to I want to I want to at least go back to writing nice I like all those I like all those um

I have uh I have three one is I want to spend uh some of the best weekends in 2022 for me where weekend spent in nature like getting out of New York going up to I don't know like the cat skills or something like that or up to like you know Upstate New York or Hudson Valley and yeah I just want to spend I want to spend a quarter quarterly once a quarter just long weekend in nature whether that's like in a cabin we rent or something like that so that's that's one um I want to hit the 800 club for lifting which is um something yeah my trainer's pushing me to do which is 800 pounds of deadlift Squat and bench like if you add up what you can do for all three of those 800 pounds

um and then I just started playing chess is that set on a certain ratio of your body weight or is it just an absolute number like for everyone it's just an absolute number it's like okay yeah um I'm gonna start calling you this 800 pound gorilla so 800 yeah uh so 800 um I have no idea if that's a good goal or not a good goal but yeah I wanna I wanna do that and also uh I just started playing chess I've never really played chess in my life like and I didn't play as a kid or anything like that so I I started playing on the chess app this year and you start started a couple months ago you started I think they start you as like a 400 player or 500 player I'm now at they give you like an I guess it's called an Iloilo ranking or

something like that I'm now an 800 which is really bad but I want to get to a 1200 in chess which the real chess players out there are going to laugh at that number but I want to get to a 1200 by the end of the year so there's some really good chess players encrypted like Ben my former partner verified quite good actually I think it was like fairly High ranked uh so um you know who's really good is Robert leschner right at compound and I think I think Ben beat Robert or was Matt yeah uh Matt Huang from um Paradox is also really good Paradigm yeah there's like a con like a tournament and the final I think was like Kane and Ben yeah so I'm trying to get my chess game up I've never played I've never really

played so I'm you've obviously watched the the Magnuson uh documentary this Norwegian Prodigy who like yeah Magnus Carlson I've been watching a lot of like Magnus uh I haven't actually seen the documentary I've been watching him on YouTube though just like I just listened to him on Lex Friedman actually yeah so nice man well I'm not very good at chess so you know you anytime you want to have like validation that you're a good player just you know yeah I want to feel really good about myself yeah this is a fun fun chat I'm uh yeah thanks everyone for listening I'm really excited about this year we have some really fun podcasts lined up I think we have a really good guest list I think we're like just I don't know continuing

to improve but Asante always says like if you guys have feedback for the show don't drop it in the YouTube comments because that's just a mean place but tweet at us and uh yeah tell us tell us what you want to see well yeah and uh yeah I'm always open to suggestions and you know let us what you think about this format uh if you like it we'll you know continue to experiment with this type of format questions and maybe fire around or stuff like that so you know always welcome feedback but as always really appreciate everyone listening and uh taking time out of your day so here's ramble happy New Year folks happy New Year everyone [Music]