DeFi By Design EP#110: Onboarding The Next 10,000,000 Users w/Luca Netz

Transcript

[Music] welcome to D5 by Design where we talk all things blockchain and cryptocurrency while striving to educate Empower and enrich what's going on guys welcome back to the D5 by Design podcast episode 110 uh here for the second go with our boy Luca uh from pudgy Penguins a lot to to discuss as far as what is being built in the web 3 space today here with my boy Rob as well Rob and I just got back from a an offsite down in South America had a lot of productivity and some fun too so what's up Rob GM welcome to the bull

market except uh Pudgies have been in a bull market for for h quite a while here so luga man thanks for coming on again it's absolutely a pleasure to have you last one was so much fun I was from the igloo now I'm in a more well-lit location and uh Vibes are up well uh thanks for having me and I hope you guys don't mind but we're joined by the blind wbat Chester uh who will be sitting on my lap during this interview if that's okay with you guys we welcome Chester to the party yeah Chester probably has some good insights on on how we got here and where we're going in this in this bull market I mean Pudgy's had been up only since 2022 middle of the year but people

keep fading Luca why why are people fading I don't know I it's it's an interesting one um I think they obviously people give us credit where credit is due um I don't know if it's like because because we're near all-time highs you know it's like it's easier if something was like at 30 eth and now it's like at two eth and it's like easy because it's like okay there's to make it back it's like 95% and I think for us you you know I think our all-time high is like 70th they like oh I I I don't know actually I don't know I you know the community says this all the time but like a lot of the things that we announced like in a bull market would take us to new heights you know every single time so I guess

sometimes that can be a little frustrating because you know you're doing a a good job and maybe some people have seen success and have seen opportunity um you know because they timed it a little bit better because they were running the ship a little bit earlier than we were uh but I trust the process I know that if we continue to do what we're doing um that we will stand the test of time and that we would be where we ultimately want to be which is you know the face of nfts the face of web 3 uh and I think once we accomplish that all of our community members and holders are happy and you know the best part about being a part of this is the community the the community that's existing loves what they're seeing and they're respecting what they're seeing

and they're happy and so so you know it's hard to convince somebody who's a maxi of some other collection to come and and buy Pudgies at the end of the day you know I think our greatness will speak for itself as we continue to execute um but what's most important to me is that the community is happy no one's what's Lucas doing what are they doing right like every everyone knows the deal and knows the situation that we're in and uh you know comparatively you know since the start of this bare Market which is pretty much the day that we bought the project uh we've been on a pretty good trajectory and so um sometimes I don't want to like compare myself to what it once was in the bull market I kind of look at you know okay this is what it was when we took over

this is what it is today and if we continue on this path then uh everyone a part of this ecosystem will be happy yeah I think you brought up a couple good points there for for the aspiring aspiring uh entrepreneurs and just overall people in the in the community that we have here who are you know who run their own projects whether it be nfts or Defi and it's been a conversation that Rob and I have been having with a lot of Builders recently is that the timing of these kind of specific of events as you say where you know there's certain things that that could be done in a quote-unquote bull market that absolutely launch you know things to the moon and just cause a an

absurd amount of height but you also only have so many Ace of Spades in your hand so so from a from a builder to a builder how do you how do you manage expectations through different phases of of the market when you have such a a community who is you know kind of like die hards as as you say just they're very very happy and uh you know glad to be a part of the community but you still have to manage those expectations and then also strategically make decisions on what to do announcements wise as well as kind of overall uh hype wise based on the different phases of the market so to our kind of listener base of def5 Builders or kind of uh marketers what's some thoughts that you've had and some

of the strategies that that you've shared to manage those expectations and also kind of time the announcements and news uh as you will it's an interesting one because it's um you know there's there was a discussion at one point which was you know do you just do we wait to do these things in a bull market when the announcements move you know volume and things like that like obviously you don't want to neglect the the the first edition collectible that is the pudgy penguin nft you want to make announcements and want to move in that direction and make sure that there's some sort of positive impact uh every time you announce something um it's a fascinating one and I think it it's like

you're caught in between a catch 22 because in one side if I said hey let's do Walmart next year probably when a bull Mark you know a bull Market's in our Tides you know that announcement probably gets six million you know views on the post instead of two and a half and you know Flor price and volume are probably move uh there's probably more more volatility in that respect that might might benefit the holders I think you know and then on one side of it you have like well am I just going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs and the promise that I made to the community really early on was you know we are not going to wait for Mass adoption we're going to create it I think that's where the IP yields the most success and when you look at you know how I think this is

going to work what I'm trying to do you know in this bare Market is gain credibility and gain familiarity uh and through that is through product distribution through content distribution there's obviously things that I think are super exciting that we will hold for a bull market that yield the type of bull market uh utility as you would call it uh ugal laabs did a great job in terms of spearheading that and so I think what we're doing right now is doing the best that we can and playing the environment to the best of our ility which I think this environment yields uh you know a track record or a success pattern that entails uh you know sustainable Revenue you know growth you know outside you know initiatives

instead of inwards initiatives or outwards initiatives instead of inwords initiatives you know this is an interesting scenario um because you know I am conscious of that and at the end of the day like I I optimize for one thing above all else which is community happiness and I know what makes the community happy whether it's the elephant in the room or like the the word that no one wants to talk about like Voldemort and Harry Potter you know and that and that is you know positive gains in some direction right and so I um I I I am confident for us too that as we continue to develop things will only get more exciting you know like people could think to themselves well Walmart is you know how much bigger can it get it can get bigger and it can get better uh and I think it also pushes us from an

entrepreneurship perspective and from a team perspective you know how do we keep upping the bar because the bar is pretty high uh and we continue to raise it and as we continue to execute uh I think the announcements will get even more and more exciting but it is an interesting conundrum and one that I think is not to be neglected there is something to be said that our efforts aren't getting the same magnification and the same output that they would of you know 18 months ago uh but just because that's the case does not mean that we should not be productive and should not be trying to break barriers at the end of the day nft bull market is going to come because people are doing exciting things not because you know everyone decided to twidle their thumbs and wait for the

bull the more people that are just waiting the more likelihood of Bowl will never come and you know we have to make this space exciting again we have to make this space legitimate we have to make this space tangible and um I think that you know pudy Penguins is playing a huge role in doing that yeah and we similarly think Rob too like with the teams that we spoke to about whether it's launching a coin you know or doing their Ido or uh you know making some big splash we often hear like in the current state oh it's just maybe not worth it or oh the Market's not quite quite ready but as you say LCA you know you have to build those you have to build the excitement before you have to build that kind of uh PVE

environment instead of this PVP everyone kind of dumping on each other environment you have to build that positivity um yeah Rob what do you think I think it speaks volumes to the impact of the initiatives that you have now because you are making waves and there isn't much of a current in your direction in in this current market conditions so it speaks to the to the impact that you guys have in a bare Market to make these contributions and ultimately that that impact that you have on the market overall drives the entire Market as a whole so I think there is an element of a rising tide lifts all boats but there's also like the Moon that

creates those Tides there is a gravity that pulls the water in a certain direction and creates the tides that lift all the other boats and I think you have a unique positioning of benefiting from the from the tide and also having a a significant impact on when the tide occurs so I think I think it's a it's a really unique position and I'm curious you mentioned from the from the time you acquired the project which was kind of the start of the B the bare market we've been long you know over over a year now that you've had that and been working on the project what's different from now and

then yeah it's uh you know even even 12 months ago is a little bit better you know we we quite literally these last couple of months there was a couple hours during a couple days I was like holy like and then and then my intuition and my instinct came back to reality and I was like wait you know don't let price action remove the fundamentals of what this is uh but it was looking dismal for a minute here I think it's looking a little bit better now um and hopefully that was the what we call the bottom but I think I think the space is evolving you know there's there's one thing to

frame a narrative and there's another thing to execute on that narrative and I hope with pudy penguins you know as we succeed it will indicate and signal to anybody else who wants to make an nft project that if you want to succeed you're going to have to do real right so for example pudgy penguin success has already been incredibly impactful for the industry because everyone's already dissected what would made what has made a successful uccessful and they're already copying our Instagram strategy they're already copying our giy strategy they're already copying our product strategy and I'm not saying that in a derogatory way you know I think copying is a is a great form of flattery I think for us and I want you

to because ultimately think about how much more followers and exposure and awareness web 3 is getting because of the trickle down effects of everyone trying to copy what pudgy Penguins is doing I mean PUD you know web 3 and nft went from an A million a million follower base on social media outside of Twitter to now they're now we're like you know the entire you know Tik Tok and Instagram social medias of web 3 companies are now on the rise hitting alltime highs on a daily basis because of what we're doing which ultimately just going to serve everybody better during the bull run right and so you know I I am um you know I think we're already changing that and so you know as

we continue to succeed I think think more and more people will follow in line and I think that will create more of a you know stable growth pattern because you know the problem is is I think nfts up until this point have been built on speculation and the problem with speculation there's a pro to speculation which is like Giga pumps right but with the with a giga pump comes a giga dump you know and they're definitely gonna clip that one but you know it's and and that's not that's that's our our industry can't be built off of giga and G good dumps they just can't right and so I actually don't mind the steady growth pattern where you just know we're going in a direction uh that like doesn't yield any

room for Dangerous speculation that ends up hurting people because everyone loves when they're early on this speculation but they never talk about or we we rarely talk about the people that get really hurt by that and so the the thing that I think we do really good at pudgy Penguins is you know exactly what you're buying into when you buy a pudgy penguin there's no room for you to like try to reinvent a narrative that you know at the end of the day you can make a conscious buying decision that does not leave room for misinterpretation that ultimately can hurt people and so it might not give us that like vertical upwards the same way that some people want it but I actually think it sets us up for long-term success which I ultimately think the great transfer of you know wealth is going to happen

through people who are you know focusing on long-term success I think the space will mature to that you know since we last spoke an interesting development that I think is fascinating is royalties have actually gone to zero so the whole nft Revenue doesn't really exist anymore and I can tell you as a top you know I I think it'd be incredibly hard to argue that we're not in a top five pfp project I would argue it's really hard to argue we're not a top three pfp project but we'll just say top five for the sake of being pragmatic you know from a pragmatic lens we are a top five nft project and we make 10 15 $20,000 a month on royalties and we're a top five nft project think about anybody else who's not us you know Yuga probably I did the math probably makes a couple

hundred, a month but it's actually gone to zero and so with that I think presents a huge problem I mean talk about the in the armor right if you have a huge valuation you need to meet that valuation you need to make money the best way to make money in web 3 is through minting new collections we've seen that it's the easiest highest yield return uh for your time energy uh though it ends up hurting the holders the core Believers of the initial assets you know if you keep going down that rabbit hole too too frequently uh and and then just like there's just writing on the wall that nfts outside of the primary sale are not making you any cash there is no cash flow uh and that presents a really dangerous problem a dangerous you know

it's a good and a bad problem it's a good problem because it requires people to innovate and get creative which is good uh it's a bad problem because a lot of people signed up under a a different expectation right they signed up under an expectation that we would make royalties and that I would be able to pay salaries and we would have a steady cash flow in some respect and now they are caught holding the bag and unfortunately we'll be labeled rug pullers and scam artists when in reality it's like dude they like what are you gonna do your business 99% of nft projects revenue is gone to zero this year actually gone to zero so they either caught with two options make real money which is not as easy as I think people

think if everyone could just stand up a business and make real money wouldn't we all be rich uh and then the second one is minting more nft collections which in in times of overflowing demand can be a net positive uh but in times of you know bare Market times it's a huge net negative right when there's no overflowing demand minting projects can be a death sentence and so this lands Cape I think it's kind of been brushed under the rug because there was some hoopla and some uproar but man oh man uh I I actually don't think people really understand what is happening because if I didn't have toys or Collectibles or all the stuff that we have going on I

would be freaking out and these things don't are very time intensive to actually get up and running took us a whole year me as an experienced you know guy consumer product guy who's done hundreds of millions of dollars in Revenue selling consumer products took me a year to stand up at toy line a whole year you know anybody else probably would take you a year if you're lucky or a year and a half or two years to really hit the velocity that we're hitting or you probably have to sign up for a bad deal which also wouldn't solve your Revenue problem so you're just looking at the writing on the wall and it's just extremely scary times uh but nonetheless I think one that will

ultimately apply a lot of pressure and people will fold under that pressure or they will turn into diamonds and I'm excited to see who turns into a dond yeah pretty comprehensive answer I mean the landscape not only 18 months ago was a bit more for off through with speculation Flor prices were were higher but yeah I remember doing the math on on some of these collections even even when when you bought uh pudgy and kind of uh the you know brought the royalties up and then down or you know more or less I was like holy cow yugul laabs is making millions of dollars per month just almost like I don't want to say doing nothing but but like they the people are just trading and speculating and I was like wow that's it's a crazy business

model and then yeah blur and then dumps and then liquidity and then and then just wow and so I think to your point like the speculative aspect of that uh you know was was great to kind of unveil this new asset Clash should we call that but also as you said with that speculation comes a big dumps and unexpected events the loss of royalties is kind of a I can only imagine what where your head was at that that day it's like oh so that's gone now like what the hell you thinking we're we're fine right but to say that I wasn't pissed I was like I was like damn that's basically $2 million a year

just godone and that's the users were fine they like I mean it's obviously for for Traders it's better now for speculators it's better now but that nobody cared in a sense I mean there was some outcry but it was like it wasn't the problem you know it wasn't the problem and and the thing is is you know I I'm not like totally against speculation I mean look at crypto's built off of speculation this entire trillion dollar market cap asset class has been basic basically built off of speculation right and if you remove nfts like the pretty pictures from nfts and just look at them from like a token perspective like holistic perspective

you know they are tokens and they could very well be featured on coin market cap if they wanted to it's just like there's still also just a fundamental discrepancy because it's like pudgy Penguins is at a80 million market cap it's in Walmart I mean look at the followers look at the growth look at the mtic power Just on giy right like the medic power is there $80 million you know how much vaporware is in in the coin market cap when you start getting down to 80 million 100 million 200 million dollars I mean it's like it's nonsense all over the place it's just endless vaporware and it's just it's just fascinating because it's like I'm not neglecting that part of the industry it can be a beautiful part of it but

there's like you know Founders can play a role in fueling that or they can play a role in tapering that right like in a Market you know there will probably be speculation around penu token and things like that like that stuff probably will arise and you know whatever right but the point of the matter is it's like what comes out of my mouth I think is important and I I can do my best to basically make people make an educated decision as to what they're getting into and what they're buying right like when I buy an ethereum I know what I'm buying right I know buy a Bitcoin I know what I'm buying if you buy a pudgey penguin you know what you're buying with nfts it was like I didn't really know what I was buying you know I was in all these Alpha

chats and we were trading nfts and you know we were just buying just to flip it you know and then people just insane uar when for some reason doesn't go your way but when Elon Musk tweets Doge right is that an indication to go by not necessarily there's also like a weird thing that crypto has taught me about self-accountability it's like strange I've always been you know when I bought like millions of dollars of chath backs and I blew it all up like like who am I am I like chamath you you evil no dude I made that conscious decision you know and I decided to listen to chamath instead of doing my own due diligence and I got freaking burned because I'm an

idiot like that guy talks so weird such a weird guy they were sh they were talking about salana at the top him and some guys they were like it's going to 1500 oh man another thing that you said there Luka and that I'm curious about your uh obviously you guys are are focused on like kind of this this more mainstream appeal adoption to crypto uh Rob and I rebranded defi Sate to the rollup to kind of focus on more like scalable Technologies onboarding uh people to you know ethereum layer twos where it's cheap fast um and I think a combination of where your head is at and where the

tech is at as far as devs and and kind of more of the crowd that perhaps we're speaking to on a on a on a a weekly basis they're they're kind of coming together at this perfect time where like that this Tech backend like we have fast safe chains we have decent mobile wallets we have you know pretty good uh onchain experiences we have some like account abstraction and some different types of of features that we didn't have uh in you know 2020 2021 and then we have you know just Trailblazers like like yourself who are just going out and who are you know pushing the limits as far as onboarding so it's kind of like we're like stirring this pot here um you know so I'm curious kind of what your thought process was with with

uh choosing ZK sync for puggy world you know kind of your thoughts on like okay so I'm gonna go out and I'm going to do my part for the ecosystem of going to get as many people involved as possible and then you know just hoping and relying on the on the devs and the builders in the back end of these rollups and of these Technologies to kind of build the ecos system that I need to succeed I'm just curious like how that all went down and how you see that from your lens kind of focusing on that Outward Bound uh marketing and kind of onboarding yeah so I think what pudgy Penguins does really well and what we can do for the entire crypto industry is we are Elite branders and Elite marketers and what crypto has a problem

is it doesn't have you know there's obviously clear technical problems but there's an abundance of technical talent that is interested in cryptocurrency in the blockchain where I see there's a huge talent pool lacking where there's a huge area lacking in this industry is really in marketing and branding I mean it's clinically bad I would probably say we are the best if not one of the best in the industry and I think we're super talented right but like 25 years old you know I shouldn't I shouldn't have a strong case as to why we are the best branders and marketers in this industry which I think I could have a compelling argument now you you know there might be one or two guys that you might want to you know put me up against but I think

the data would support that we are the best branders and marketers in crypto right like if you just look at the data right and so from that perspective you know we want to play a role doing what we do best which is proliferating the character and the IP and the thesis of web 3 and the technology of blockchain like that is our role in this industry and with that there's a lot of things that we don't do as well right and so there's amazing chain Partners there's amazing collaborators uh whether they're building SAS products or tooling and I am always I've been I've been preaching this since basically day one of my entrepreneurship but I've made my whole career on working smarter not harder I never owned a 100% of anything I rarely

even own 50% of things I always owned like 15 20 30 maybe 40% of businesses because I was never the person that wanted to do all of the work I wanted to put people in place to do the work and we would collaborate to build something great and awesome this worked really well for me for a very long time and still has it's kind of our ethos and Pudgy penguins like we're not you know we have pudgy World we're not the best game developers we' never built games before but there's plenty of people who have what gaming in web 3 does not have is they don't have a distribution mechanism we are the distrib we are the kings of distribution I mean we are in tens of thousands of stores now across the world call it 10,000 plus tens of thousand is a little misleading but

10,000 Plus stores around the world we're selling hundreds of thousands of toys this month we will sell hundreds of thousands of toys next month we will sell hundreds of thousands of toys and next and December we will sell hundreds of thousands of toys we're gaining thousands of followers every single day we're getting tens of millions of views every single day across all of our social mechanics and so all all of our social platforms and so what we know how to do is we know how to distribute right and so you just work backwards what do we know how to do well well right we know how to you know Market well we know how to create great products and and uh experiences that people love right we might not be able to F you know figure out the fine details on certain things and this is where we bring Partners

right like for example ZK sync you know for the Pudu World product for example you know there's a lot of chains that are fast there's a lot of chains that do this and that and ZK sync is one of the best chains at what it does but what really excited me about ZK sync is their ability to participate and want to help build uh what we're doing right like they just don't want to a passive partner and just sit back and be like hey thanks for using our chain we want to support you in every way possible and that's what it means to to to align yourself with people who want to support you it's not just like hey you know you have a good product you need more than a good product if you want what we have right you need to be able to help us and

they've done that in a way that I think is barnone to anybody else yeah could you go a little bit more in depth so are they like they they helped out with a grant and they also helped out with with uh active Dev work uh Community Support kind of yeah what's the yeah they they basically gave us like full Dev resources access BD Partnerships events you know we have like a whole slew of events going out for Pudu world into the next year once the product actually shipped so the product that is today is very much not the minimum viable MVP which was it was which is what it was before that but it's very much a true MVP now we will go into what I call like our Alpha stage uh with this launch in December which I'm super excited for uh and then that product will have like

a real chance succeeding once we make that launch uh they helped with the grant they helped with uh you know a ton of other resources I mean they're just they're just proactive right uh PR right got a whole PR team that I can call anytime I want you know I don't need to pay it like just cool stuff like that it's like dude you you care about seeing this product succeeding and the chain is just good like it's it's it's competitive to any other chain L2 that exists like to say that ZK sync is not I just would say like you're not looking at the numbers because they are definitely there's there's nothing really any other L2 does significantly better uh than ZK sank in my opinion I mean to them it's kind of a no-brainer

right Rob like don't we speak to all these chains and their biggest thing is like attracting daps attracting uh Builders attracting devs like we speak to so many chain ecosystems and it's like attracting devs that's what they want they want to attract Builders to build on top of their chain so for them it's like if you guys are G to go and bring all these users to ZK sync and and allow them to engage in pudgy world people that wouldn't even usually be on chain it's like okay I mean it's like Christmas for for uh from Robin I point of view as far as when we talk to these chain Builders yeah I mean I I think it was a good deal on our side I think it was a good deal on their side and ultimately you know what we want to be is I want to

be the face of consumer facing crypto and I think ZK Sync has a similar dream right and so I I I I would say you're hard pressed to find another brand that is pushing consumer facing crypto outside of board ape than us uh you know and and I think we're leading that charge and so I I plan for it to be a long and fruitful relationship and they've been nothing but Stellar Partners up until this point the convergence of nfts as the consumer facing products and the technology of these blockchains is is an interplay that I'm super bullish on it's it's it's criminally obvious

honestly I mean I just don't know how I don't know I think meme meme coins and meme thesises are obvious I mean dude you you clearly haven't walked the floor of ComicCon or been to one of these crazy Star Wars or Harry Potter events nfts are the consumer facing products for crypto and and and people I don't think ever really gave nfts the credit they really should have given during that bull run I mean nfts were so prevalent that the entire network would shoot up 100x in gas if there was a crazy mint going on I mean from a you know it's from an ad perspective just think about this it is really hard to

like do an ad and be like go buy this crypto coin there's like nothing exciting about it there's just like what this coin and like this graph right maybe some like cool stream meme that like makes you laugh your ass off but marketing an nft project your your opportunities are infinite like it's it's it's infinite in how many ways you can position it you can do an animatic you can do a whole storyboard you can do a meme you can do there's like a trillion ways to get people excited of this character and if you get them excited enough then they make a metam mass they buy ethereum and they come in it's true retail adoption and like the proliferation of it right like you saw it with Bard ape none of these

celebrities can put a Bitcoin they can do some laser eyes laser eyes was a good little marketing tactic that Bitcoin bitcoiners had right but like dude is there was never ever a crypto marketing master class and an adoption masterclass from a crypto facing product than B8 nothing even comes remotely close nobody talk about it I'm like why don't you talk about what was honestly crypto's greatest marketing moment of all time it's not FTX Arena or crypto.com Arena or the logo on Jersey or in UFC Octagon that's freaking that's that's nothing dude that's that's like inches

compared to you know super star changing their profile picture of a board ape and all the Impressions that Superstar gets and then that super Superstar like Neymar what that that alone beats your whole crypto.com UFC Octagon sponsorship single-handedly I mean that maybe a couple others compounded would beat that but do you see what I'm saying like that that and that is organic that is unparalleled I mean we're not going to have the organic conversation because I don't I personally don't know but the point of the matter is is that is proliferation in its maximum form nothing else in crypto can proliferate like that the retail demand for these things are exponentially better than anything else uh in the industry I

promise you more so than meme coins more so than all that just like the friction of buying and selling them was a problem and I and I think over the course of the last couple years a lot of bright Minds have solved a lot of these liquidity things and you know flooring Labs that we're seeing now like flooring Labs integrates into Unis swap in a seamless way and I can just go eth to up and just buy $10 of a pudgy penguin win like if you see how that flow how I'm imagining that flow just go to Unis swap up verified flooring Labs token and I can just buy $10 of a pudgy penguin I mean that whole market cap discrepancy that I talked to you about of like how the hell is pudgy Penguins an80 million

market cap token when there's $500 million vaporware all over the place that will be solved that that because then because then there's like endless liquidity at that point it's G to get really special pretty soon yeah that's what I was thinking about the difference between non-fungible and fungible like it's tougher to it's tougher to really scale like the non-fungible market cap to something like I don't know like a freaking Tron or something you know it's just there's there but yeah if we if you could you could kind of do that fractionalization and and and make it so people can buy $500 $200 $1,000 worth over and over then what you end up getting is more of like a you get more of like a liquid chart like a liquid graph uh as if it

was a a fungible token but yeah it's been pretty cool to see that um you know flooring Labs thing pop up and and furthermore on your point is and Rob is this the proliferation of the of the of the market with the pudgy image and the pudgy food and the the toys and Instagram that's all none of that's really possible with a you know a Litecoin like there's a logo and like there's a there's a lightning strike but like you know no one's really getting that excited about that um and then and when you put on on top of that what you're trying to do as far as like actually build a real business in in crypto honestly man like you PUD Penguins might be one of the only few other than like a software company a

data company uh or select Tooling in infra that is actually trying to build like a a a profitable business in crypto and you know I think there's a bit been a bit of an issue with that as as far as the speculative aspect um and yeah I just think that this next this next run is going to be dominated by more and more businesses that have tokens or nfts rather than just kind of like a I don't know a random project they'll be the pretty pictures that go 100x over M you know I talking about this on another interview there actually was there's actually nothing more exciting than from like a trading and flipping perspective than a mint like there act it actually

is probably the most exciting way to try to make money as like a consumer because like the rare pulls and like that and like all that that comes with it you have like a one in 10,000 chance of hitting the lottery if you get a one of1 you know what I mean like it's like I just talking about it like I know 100% nfts will come back just because the minting was like there's nothing more fun shitcoins are boring dude like it's too much stress you know like way too much way too it's and mints are like shitcoins on like 10x steroids there just so much more upside to like going and doing a dope mint than like doing some pre-sale some so it's coming back I just for that reason alone

I know it will come back yeah I I was curious about that about the uh the the ZK sync Grant as well and that kind of took me more into like you know Rob and I just applied for the uh Retro Retro optimism Grant and that that only exists in crypto um but but I'm curious like now that royalties have have uh dissipated entirely um obviously that was part of some of your plan as far as making money in the business model but where do you see like the next 18 months or so or even just from now until end of 24 like where do you see the majority of the Pudge penguin Revenue coming from do you have

plans to open up different streams of of Revenue and then once we kind of get through this I'm curious is it a is it a spread and go wide approach or is it a fixate on what's working in skill kind of vertically going into the new year so we we we did the spread wide approach this year right so a lot of different things and you know once we launch the children's book which would probably be like the last one that will go into next year so that will be like an an outlier but next year it's just like make the numbers so ginormous go market market scale Revenue the ZK Grant was nice because it's like it's a it's a it's an interesting thing because the

nft and I'm trying to see how like this will mature and I know there's a bunch of major projects that are about to Stage a coup and like completely fli like there's there's some interesting things going in the background some projects are not going to stand for this Z zero royalty like they're feeling it and they're working on Solutions and so I'm like I'm not feeling it the same way that they're feeling it so I'm like great you guys go solve this problem you reach out to me with the solution and if the solution makes sense then I will Implement if not then we'll see but like think about it how many years can an nft project go with making zero money from the nft with like with still prioritizing the

nft now my business is different because I've reinvented the community to be like my affiliate marketers to go and generate outside Revenue right which I think is like I think that's the solution but like like I'll be honest with you like and I've been honest with this I'm I'm trying to be as honest as possible like what I make at Walmart is nothing short of what was being made every single day on like mints like those mints that were minting on the daily basis every day during a bull market like multiple times a day are making more money than what I will make when we sell out Walmart you know what I mean like it's like a it's like an interesting

conundrum that I haven't really fully wrapped my head around because my plan is like dude just build the business get this to where it needs to be and everything will fall into place and it will kind of work itself out and I trust the people solving the royalty issues but like can somebody really go 10 years without directly making money on what is supposed to be the most expensive and important asset in the ecosystem I mean think about it like I don't know that answer I don't know like and I don't know what that lever is now I do know that if there's overflowing demand then maybe I can introduce an antagonist which is like a polar bear right like and but like I've got to hit serious eth milestones for me to even consider adding another collection to the

ecosystem I mean like if I'm not a 30 eth pudgy penguin floor multiple eth little Pudgies like I can't even I'm not even remotely thinking about potentially minting a new collection like it's I'm not because like I know what ha I I know the only way that works is if overflowing demand is clear and to me overflowing demand is indicated by all of your nfts in your ecosystem are too expensive for anybody want to come in right like that would be my indicator like mutant Apes were clearly the right decision right because there was overflowing demand for the board ape and it was clear people could not get a board ape so minting the mutants was a great way and it actually play I thought

was a huge net positive for The Bard AP Community I mean an an instrumental net positive you basically expanded the community thing went you know people don't know I mean Bard mutants were underwater for like a couple weeks and then just kind of Skyrocket so it's just like a fascinating thought to kind of think about I I don't know necessarily but I I'm trusting in the universe to kind of Shake It Out by the time it becomes like a vocal point and and my thoughts but right now my thoughts are just like make the the traditional business win so that I never really need to think this way uh and I can always justify it with uh you know we're winning regardless so I don't need to go and try to get greedy does the and I I want to Circle

back to something you said earlier about increasing the liquidity for pudgy penguins which then when someone can buy buy $10 worth of a pudgy it lowers the barrier of entry and allows more demand to flow into the ecosystem without overflowing does that change your landscape of including new Collections and adding new elements into the universe when there is a greater access channel into the into the community yeah I think the reason why the liquidity thing is cool is because it ultimately does create that point of entrance but like at the end of the day

I can buy a tenth of a pudgy penguin but I can't rock a pudgy penguin as a pfp like I don't really you don't get any of the perks you get exposure to the volatility but you don't get exposure to any of the utility right and like utility I think will still matter access will still matter uh you know Community will still matter status will still matter uh monetary gain through airdrops or licensing will still matter you know like people also underestimate this like people think the board AP trade I don't know why again this just all some of this stuff is strange to me outside looking in but the board board ape trade was one of the greatest trades of all time and specifically in the last 10 years I mean it was Allah buying Bitcoin in like 2012

not because of the board ape appreciation from mint price to 150 floor it was everything that came with it right this ability to drop things in people's wallet I mean if you would have sold close to the top of everything that bour a gave you with like and you minted it I mean it it is the the percentage gain is probably better than Bitcoin at like obviously not like a dollar Bitcoin but like a 20 3050 $100 Bitcoin maybe I don't know the math but it's close right because you made close to $2 million off of everything Pico close to the top now every obviously we don't time the top but around there and that was because of a mechanism that only nfts can yield

only nfts and nft projects and nft Founders if they have the wherewithal can create that much wealth if you have a clear understanding as to what you're doing right like it's not like it's way better than any 2000x shitcoin that you pick up because if you pick up the right nft project which is you know Bor ape clonex did this well right obviously the monolith was screwed but clonex did really good job doing this isuki kind of did a good job doing this with the two beans like there's there's a a way to reward your holders and your community through nfts a way that no other business or no other cryptocurrency can do like it is the ultimate reward mechanism if the founder has the

wherewithal to understand really the the pros of this industry and if they can get far along to kind of create that value right getting far along I think is the hard part I think the wherewithal is pretty easy to to deduct all you got to do is study ukul labs to figure out how that happened uh and so it's just like that that part of it I think is just criminally underestimated and sorry if didn't answer your question but no you did you did it it's clear from your answer that it's overwhelming demand for the utility because it's not just the token or the or the nft or what exists on chain it's what that onchain asset delivers you from from owning it that's the overwhelming demand that then opens

up new new doors and New Opportunities so yeah I the the answer was was great um I'm just glad that you haven't used all your cards yet there Luca we had a couple left no I mean dude honestly all of the sexy cards haven't been used because all the sexy cards are in a bull market like I can't go air drop anybody some bears right now why would I do wall it yeah yeah no dude like I'm really just best what I call bare market utility that I can which is like build a business grow the exposure and Licensing is like the cherry on top so like I'm not forgetting about you you know what I mean but like all that is ancillary and and like it's all what I can do now that I think is responsible and doesn't

put this business at Jeopardy but I mean dude you it's 15 20 30 50 like dude bear whatever this that like dude we'll get fun it'll get really fun and really exciting I bet it will you know a a capara an otter like oh I got I got plenty of characters in my Rolodex you know and obviously I'm not a fool I won't just do that like every month you know but like dude I that's the most exciting part like the best thing that I can do for you Andy in a bull market is air drop you in nft and you're like oh dude clutch dude just gave me freaking 10 e stoked great job be so Hy bro keep working exactly like I don't know why people just lose track of it this this is I'm doing what I can that I think is

smart practice for the in condition that we're in in a bull market dude give me give me a week in the war room with the crew and like I'm going to give you guys the best best meal you've ever gotten in your life I promise no doubt in my mind I just have to make it there make it there while growing while the business makes it there while the team makes it there right because like dude you know like people don't think about it but like one of the reasons why I had a raise Venture was like dude the team was burning out they were getting paid nothing for 12 months of course I've got to go like raise capital and pay them and and even the GU some of the guys today are clinically underpaid so I gotta work hard to make sure you know

that that stuff is important like Talent is important you can't have a bunch of rookies in your org you know you wouldn't get all the cool that we have today all the nice looking so we're doing our best with what we've got in this environment I think is a long story short Luca you're you're not just making it there you're making it happen so kudos to you and kudos to the whole pudgy team and the whole pudgey Community um I recently acquired we acquired one on the rollup that was my pfp I'm here I am my pudgy my pudgy is me and I am I am here to stay Thank You Luca bro uh any any closing thoughts any last words uh to go out to all the Pudgies

out there uh with anytime you guys want an interview I always do it sorry for being a couple minutes late Robbie you got a great macaroni head you know Andy your your penguin is Infamous and the Penguin story and just want to say thank you guys for supporting us you know Andy you've always been a champion of the brand it doesn't go unnoticed uh the rest of the community too I mean like I couldn't have picked a you know been a part of a better community in this fact I every day you guys make it easy for me to uh you know do my job and sometimes there'll be some outside hecklers but you guys got it covered so thank you guys for supporting us and uh thank you for all the pudgy holders and Pudgy listeners uh who continue to support us it does not go

unnoticed yes sir welcome to the bull see you later sir welcome to the B thanks Luka yep