War Stories From a Crypto Founder | Kain Warwick

Transcript

What's the end goal? Is it still to take down the centralized exchanges? >> 100%. The world will take down centralized exchanges. Hyperlid has reinvigorated this decentralized platforms can win thesis, but the job's not done. Like there's a lot of work, right, that needs to happen. We need to get to a world where people can interact with crypto in a non-custodial fashion as easily as they can do it in a custodial fashion. The world is going to be permissionless. There's no question of that. It's just a matter of time. This episode is brought to you by Zcash.

You'll hear more about them later in today's episode. Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell any investments or products. This podcast is forformational purposes only. And the views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice or necessarily the views of Blockworks. Our hosts, guests, and the Block Works team may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed. >> All right, everyone. Welcome back to Empire Kane Man the Myth. What's going on?

>> Hey, what's happening? Uh, everything everything's going >> chaos. >> I is it your birthday? >> Uh, it was my birthday yesterday actually. Day before Halloween, so my birthday for you today. So, you can say happy. >> Nice. I can celebrate it here. I'll I'll >> can celebrate my birthday over there in the US. Um, why do you put your birthday on your Twitter? You know, that's like a big OPSAC thing. >> Dude, my passport got like leaked in a it way past Twitter. Like, I might as well just have my banner be my passport, an image of my passport at this point.

So, yeah, that that ship sailed unfortunately. >> What do you do for OBSAC? Do you use ledgers or do you are you just like in a I don't know enterprise institutional Coinbase account or what are you what are you doing these days? I I have I have uh everywhere is like make it as hard. >> Yeah. Make it as hard as possible. Put stuff in as many places as possible. Um to the point where like you know I don't even know some of the stuff. Like I I literally I had a meeting I like once a week. Um my family office gets together um and um on on like a Wednesday afternoon. And >> is this Bodie?

>> This is No. So Bod's my prop fund. It's it's complicated. So So Bodie Jordan um the co-founder of Synthetics and I started in 2019 um which was like I think the first uh investment we made was in the graph >> which pretty good one. Um and uh I remember in 2020 or something when the token launched I was like uh I think this thing's worth like $20 million. Like what what's going on? You're locked for years and years. Um but yeah, so uh so so we started that prop fund in 2019. Um in 2021, Jordan, uh resigned from synthetics and like went full-time running the fund. Uh so he has um there's two books, there's

liquid and venture book, and he has about 10 staff that he runs um between Lisbon and Dubai. U so we do a lot of venture stuff, uh a lot of liquid stuff. Um, it's it's good fun, but this is just like my personal like family office. Um, >> tax planning and estate planning, >> dude. It's the most boring stuff, right? Anyway, so I I I was like >> I feel like I can't find any crypto. Like, what is going on? Like, have we have we used all our liquid crypto? Like, what? Like, I'm out to have >> literally like out of ETH. I'm like down to like not much Bitcoin. And you know, we've been cycling stuff into different things and different different deals and and uh various places. Um and uh the the guy who runs my family office was like,

"No, no, we've got plan T. You just don't know where it is." And I was like, "Okay, that's good." >> Yeah. And you think you think that's good until you wake up like your your your show Hey Otanian, your your translator walked off with 30 million, you know, >> literally. Well, okay. So you you think it's good except um I have a very very large uh SNX long open um that uh I started building up. So I basically I I went to my family office and I'm like I don't have enough SNX. Like I'm super bullish. We're going to run this back. Like I want to buy more SNX. And uh they were like absolutely not. Like we refuse to allow you to do that. And I was like I was like you no like what? You have to let me buy SNX if I want to buy and

they're like, "I'm sorry." Like, "You have enough SNX, you're fine." Um, and so I was like, "All right, you I'm going to trade it on pers." And so I built up over the course of like, I don't know, maybe a month or or two months or something like that, a big uh big SNX long. Um, and it's on Infinex per on hyperlquid. Um, and we have a dashboard which shows like the live tracking of all the positions. Um, and uh, it's like not even close to liquidation, but you know, after 10:10, I'm like an hour could wipe out the world, right? So, I'm a bit like on edge um, walking around.

Anyway, I get into the office. I walk past this big dashboard which has like all the metrics, whatever. Um, and I noticed that the uh, open interest on our positions has gone down by like a couple mil. And I was like, did I just get liquidated? And even worse, right? So I pull out my phone and I look at the the price action and I forgot that I changed it to the daily chart. I usually sit on like the hourly chart, right? So it's on the daily chart. So the first thing I pull up is the wick down to like 40 cents on hyperlid and I was like, "Oh, >> it was just a data. It was like a data thing and like the the uh the API."

>> Fine. So you didn't get licked. >> I was fine, but I was like, "All right, I got to put more margin. This thing is I'm living on the edge here." What do you think about um like investing versus building companies now that you've done it with um yeah BOD and synthetics and Infinex like I I think a lot of founders especially people who have been in the industry I mean you've been in it building in for like a decade I've been building for eight years I think a lot of people have been building for like let's call it five plus years something goes through their head where they're like ah maybe I want to get into the investing side of things they start dabbling with angel investing usually in like year three or four or five of the industry maybe they want to go launch a

fund you did it with Bodie like Lesnar did with Robot Ventures. Like what are your thoughts on just I don't know that dynamic? >> Yeah, I I I have this debate in some of my like Telegram chats all the time, right? Like um I still think that if you have access, right? So if you are a top founder in a cycle, right? Let's say you're like you don't have to be a main character, right? But if you're a top founder, maybe like top uh top, you know, 10 20 founders, um the deal flow that you get is so positive EV in that cycle u that like it makes no sense not to to just ape everything, right? Um so that's like the first cycle, right?

>> You think it's still positive EV or you're saying that >> positive EV? I think it's I think it's massively positive, you know, like someone turns up and says, "Hey, do you want like access to Mega E and Monad and Plasma and you know >> Yeah, I agree. and like whatever whatever the because there's a really good filter, right, where you're like not well known enough that you're getting like all of the deal flow. You're just getting people that are like switched on enough as in founders that are switched on enough to to know, you know what, I'm going to go to guy. >> I'm gonna see if I get guy on my cap table right?

>> Well, and and it's venture firms come to you being like, hey, this founder is really good. And it's like, you know, >> Yeah. because they want they want like that name recognition of another founder recognizing a founder and you know and I think um you know especially in the early days like I I spent a lot of time uh with my portfolio companies like helping founders etc. Um and and you know that is also really positive EV, right? Because um a you get like you know a lot of uh very interesting um uh kind of feedback from people that are like in the trenches as well with you, right? Um which is which is super valuable. So you know like I talk to

Namk all the time, right? And and you know I talk to Kone uh you know every once in a while, probably every six months or something. Um, but if I need to talk to them because I've been there when maybe they had a question about something and I'm like, "Hey, why are you guys doing this?" or like, "What's going on with this thing?" It's really nice to have that access where someone will DM you back and and give you that kind of feedback on on something. So, um, you know, I think there's not just like the financial side of it, there's also the connectivity to other founders side as well, which is quite quite beneficial. um on the on the second cycle though, especially towards the end of the first cycle like into the second cycle, it flips from positive to you can't just yolo every deal that that

comes in front of you because people they've seen you're an angel. >> They see you're a soft target maybe, right? And like I think you could say this probably for like both me and Stanny. Like Stanny has done every single deal like in the history of mankind 2021, right? He's like on every single one. And you know, might not be big checks, right? 10K, 20K, something like that. Uh but they add up. You do 125k checks like that starts to, you know, uh not be amazing. And and so I think that there is a window of opportunity as a founder where like you've just gotten to the point where you're kind of a little bit famous but only people who know know. Um once you get too well known as a person who's a

soft target, people just come out of the woodwork like you know hammering you. >> What do you do now? You just throw it to Bodie Ventures and Jordan. >> Yeah. >> Someone pings me and says, "Hey, I got a great deal or whatever." Like I probably get I don't know five cold DMs a day on Twitter. uh with deal flow um because people know that I write checks. So >> yeah, they see you on the they see you on the VC list or something. >> It's easy, right? Like especially after Poly Market after that Poly Market uh someone tweeted out like the Poly Market seed investors. It was like me, Melum, Lesner, uh Stanny, and I think like a bunch of people saw that who may not know who, you know, like I am or or say,

>> "Okay, this guy just made a bag. like let's >> Yeah. Yeah. This guy's got some cash. Let's go and let's try and get some. >> Are you going to do the Are you going to sell your poly Are you going to do the tender in the poly the poly market tender? >> Yeah. It's funny, right? Like so um you know we did the seed round uh we have been pretty significantly diluted um over the course of like the subsequent rounds like probably like by 80% or something I would say. I mean it's still it's still a multiundx bagger right? It's a crazy, you know, um, and especially back then, like the the round, that first round was like 10 mil.

>> It's not like someone could put a million dollars in or something like that, right? Like, you know, checks were like 10, 15, 20, 50K. Um, maybe one confirmation put in like a couple hundred or something like that. But it wasn't like people were slinging, you know, two, three million checks around. Um, so my view at the moment, um, you know, I've been I've been deathriding Shane's cracked career for the last like whatever it is six years like I'm not ready to get off this ride. I I want to get out. And I think the interesting thing about Poly Market is there is a chance that they do something wild like tokenized equity or like an equity token or an IPO with a >> I mean that's the thing. It's like I think all eyes are on them because

they've got a you know what $15 billion valuation now or supposedly um on the equity side but they're also going to do a token. So it's a it's kind of like what they do ends up setting the tone for like what Ripple does with Ripple Labs and or maybe that's a bad example but UniS swap and unis swap labs and >> like unis swap is another another very interesting one right that like um you know I've got a bag of uni that I've been been kind of you know holding for for dear life right um and you know I think there is definitely momentum for governance change you know I've tweeted I've tweeted about this a few times like the governance nonsense that went on from like the end of DeFi summer to probably 2023. Um, you know, which was

just a like, you know, kind of survival mechanism in many cases, right? Trying to trying to, you know, create as much cover fire as possible for people who are building building this stuff when the Democrats are trying to kill everyone. um like you don't really you know when you look back on it right like uh there's not many bright spots in that whole exercise right um and you know the problem is optimizing for the wrong things it wasn't you know at first governance was like decentralization um trust minimization you know uh credible neutrality like all of the good stuff and then it became like just a shield to protect from you know regulatory overreach right um once it

becomes a shield, it's not going to be optimized in the right way and and you know, I think we there were a lot of kind of perverse uh incentives at play and and things that got up there. >> Yeah. H what do you what are you do you do you trade on poly market? >> Uh yeah, so I I do a little bit. Um I think uh like around the election um I I had a couple of uh a couple of little um plays that I made um not too big. Um but you know we we started building an integration uh as in Infinex started building an integration of Poly Market.

I think that there is in the nicest possible way a lot of UX innovation that could go into prediction market. >> Can you trade can you play with markets on Infinex Poly Market? >> Not yet. Not yet. there. We've got like a very very early alpha. Um, but as soon as we started building the alpha, we reverse engineered all the APIs. And then I started talking to someone at Polymark and they're like, "Actually, we've got a better plan. Like, come and do this thing." So, so we rebuild everything. Um, it'll probably come out after TG is my is my hot take. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes You're TG or they're TG.

>> TG. Yeah. They're TG. Who knows, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, yeah. I find um especially something about this market because this market is so so dead um for for tokens. I find the I find prediction markets to be a much more interesting markets right now. And I I actually think that I think the UI is crappy but also very addicting. Um whereas it's just you can so easily just start you can just Yeah. I mean you can click like I don't know. I find it very addicting. >> I mean so I didn't bet on this. uh I wish that I had I was a bit lazy and this is like this is you know one of the things that that I I kind of strongly believe right um is uh making it very easy to just kind of have an opinion and

express it is is one of the most important things um and at the moment like it's still a bit cooked right all right like you got to have fun sitting there or you got a bridge or whatever um but the thing that um uh one of my groups um was talking about for the last like has been the mega ETH uh you know final allocation like how much how much will it go to? Um and by like day two I was 100% convinced that it was going to go over 1.2. Um I wasn't sure if it was going to go to 1.4. In the end it missed 1.4 by like $10 million. Um and so that that bet was, you know, there wasn't a ton of volume. I think it was like maybe half a mil or something like that. Um but yeah, it was it was definitely those

are the types of things that like it just you know we're already watching all of this stuff, right? Like this is like the thing that we're watching and then to be a it's like watching sport and you can now bet on the team. >> I I actually think the market that they need to lean into even more is basically what I'd call like crypto rumors. Um >> 100%. >> Is this company raising? Is this company going to do their token now? Like I I I like the market. Is Infinex launching a token in I think this year is the market right? >> Well, yeah. So, the market is uh >> what's the likelihood that you guys launch a token in 2025? I think is the market.

>> Well, yeah, exactly. So, so you know, like at the moment, it's literally a coin toss. Like, if we can, we will do it late December. I don't think we're going to get there. Um, but you know, there are some things that could push that forward. Like, no one knows. like genuinely the world has no more information like um you know it's it's really going to come down to like timeline. We want to do it um as soon as is practicable um which means you know in the next two to three months which means it's like right on the ed it just happens to be randomly right on the edge of like that cut over between 2025 and 2026. So >> I think there's such a fun feedback loop that's happening though with um I don't

know if you listen to the Coinbase earnings call today. I I didn't listen. A friend just texted me and said, "Hey, did you listen to the Coinbase call?" I said, "No." I said, "At the end, Brian said, I'm looking at the polymarket odds about whether certain things will be said, so I'm just going to say Bitcoin and ETH a couple times so that those things hit." Yes. And I'm like, I love that. >> I know, right? Well, I the the other one that was interesting was the Xi uh Trump handshake uh like how long will the handshake be? Which is just like giga autism, right? Like what? Like like why? No different though than in football.

Will it be a heads or tails or will the will the will the national anthem be more than two minutes like? >> Yeah, exactly. >> This episode is brought to you by Zcash, the decentralized digital cash that is encrypted to ensure agency and safety with a fixed supply of 21 million and proofof work consensus. Zcash is encrypted Bitcoin. buy, store, and spend encrypted Bitcoin using the Zcash powered mobile wallet, Zashi. To find out more, visit their website or click the link in the show notes. Thanks to Zcash for making today's episode possible. Shout out to today's sponsor, Katana. Katana is a DeFi first chain built for deep liquidity and high yield.

No empty emissions, just real yield and sequencer fees routed back to DeFi users. Incubated by Polygon Labs and GSR, Katana is launching with notable ecosystem of primitives, assets, and partners like Morpho, Chain Link, and more. Katana's 1 billion CAT campaign is live. Bridge and deposit directly into vaults in one simple click and start earning immediately on your Ether, Bitcoin, USDC, and more. Follow the link in today's show notes to get started. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk, terms, and conditions apply.

Um, I'd love to hear like what just thinking back to when you launched Infinex, like what what you got right and also maybe more importantly, more fun, like what what you got wrong. >> Honestly, when I launched, like if you go back to like May 2023 or even earlier maybe, I think it was like March, April 2023 where I first had the idea. I I had a dream. I woke up and I was like I know, right? Yeah. Not quite like Satoshi told me to buy Bitcoin level dream, but like I had a dream and I woke up and I was like I was like that dream was like really um unsatisfying. It was this like sense of frustration and dissatisfaction with like where things had gotten to. Like we just hadn't um we

hadn't been able to kind of nail uh what what we were trying to nail with synthetics. Um, and they had just at that point only like four months before launched the new exchange, right, the like synthetic speed. Um, and it just it wasn't great. And I was like really frustrated. I was like, we got so much wrong about that. They spent nine months like rebuilding it, optimizing it, and it just didn't land. And and I was like, there's something wrong here. And so I had this intuition of like, there's something wrong. My first like 10 guesses of what that thing was were like way off base at the end of the day. The thing that was wrong like I was like we need to be more centralized. We need like decentralized infrastructure,

centralized frontends, etc. I had all of these ideas. Um but at the end of the day I think the thing that um eventually after like multiple iterations and trying things which you know again this like over two years ago now right which seems crazy that it was that long ago but but yeah like we I got to the point where probably early this year we were like okay it's bringing everything into a single platform that's non-custodial that just makes it easy to do stuff on chain again >> like doing things on chain had become harder and harder and you know people got tired of like messing around with gas and bridges and all of that stuff.

Um and so yeah we we I think we got to a point where um we you know um we uh we really were confident in the thesis like a thing that let you do everything on chain um on any chain on any DAP etc. But even up to the start of this year, even up to July of this year, I was pushing back so hard on no browser extension. I'm like, browser extensions of the past. We're not doing a browser extension. Like, that's like 2018 nonsense. And then we did a browser extension because it's the only real solution to the problem today.

>> What do you What's the what what's the end goal? Is it still to take down the centralized exchanges? >> 100%. And and you know like the world will take down centralized exchanges. It's in there. >> Why why are centralized exchanges such a big problem for people maybe who haven't thought about that problem? >> So so centralized exchanges are the thing that allowed us to climb out of the primordial ooze, right? Um, you know, if you think about in like uh like, you know, kind of evolutionary terms, right? Um, early crypto was like peer-to-peer single-sellled organisms just like floating around in like a hot

lake somewhere or whatever, right? And then centralized exchanges emerge. And >> I don't know why I just pictured Charlie Shrem there like climbing out of the right. But but all of a sudden the world like you know reconfigures itself and these centralized exchanges pop up and they were the thing alongside dark markets, right? Um that that drove that first wave of adoption. Um and why did they work so well? Because they were just much easier. like local bitcoins is awesome, super cool. Um it was never going to scale to billions or you know trillions of dollars, right? And so centralized exchanges came in solved that problem and they were so good at

solving that problem that they dominated the world for like millions of years, right? But it's not a satisfying solution to the problem given that the underlying thing that they're um you know letting you interact with is supposed to be decentralized. And so you're you're interacting with this decentralized infrastructure, permissionless finance, all of these things via some guy's like database in his basement, which is wild, right? But we just didn't have the technology to do it better. And now we do. But they are so powerful that we need something and, you know, something needs to happen to

kind of shift this and and you know, make it possible for decentralized platforms to win. And you know, a lot of people think we're um we're already there, but if you look at even, you know, Hyperlid versus Binance, right? Like we're still not there yet. There's still a long way to go. There's still a lot of work to do. Um Hyperlid has reinvigorated this, you know, decentralized platforms can win thesis. Um but the job's not done. Like there's a lot of work, right, that needs to happen. We need to get to a world where people can uh interact with crypto in a non-custodial fashion as easily as they can do it in a custodial fashion. Once we're there, then we're there. Then it's

like then now every and and the thing that I think is driving this is this proliferation of uh assets and opportunities that are on chain today. um that's gone, you know, 10, 100,000x since 2020, since DeFi summer, right? Like we're really, you know, the opportunities are really on chain now and everyone knows it and all the centralized exchanges are responding to this. Binance, Coinbase, like everyone's trying to figure out what their response is to this shift. The world is going to be permissionless. There's no question of that. It's just a matter of time.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. I actually think the um Mike and I have been talking a lot about like the mega trend that Blockwork Works will be riding for the next decade. And I I'm pretty convinced at this point that the last 10 years was assets moving on chain. The next 10 years will be basically full businesses and companies and revenue moving on chain. And that'll come from assets moving on chain too. But yeah, you see it in companies like yeah Coinbase. I mean, Coinbase is clearly internally like desperately, maybe desperate is the wrong word, but like scrambling to move to become an onchain business instead of a I mean, this the centralized exchanges are basically just web two businesses.

>> Yeah. >> Private database businesses that operate in crypto. So, >> yeah. >> But not just operate that own and control crypto, right? Like we've been in this kind of uh prehistoric era, right? where um the way that you interact with crypto is via a centralized entity for 99.9% of people, right? It's only this cycle that cracks have really started forming. Um and that's why every centralized exchange is is working out what their uh posture is to this new world. Like in 5 years time, I'm very confident that we don't have centralized exchanges the way that we think of them today. uh they have evolved into some new form which doesn't

mean you won't Coinbase or a Kraken or a Binance. I think that those businesses will exist. They will just be in a very different posture. >> Yeah. Do you ever do you kick yourself at all for you guys started kind of with a wallet? Um do you kick yourself for not having just started with I mean you can't just say do do hyperlquid but like do you ever kick yourself for being like a crap we could have just started with a great trading platform? You know, the funny thing was that like I I left synthetics, right? Um and and let the engineers who are working and and product um product people who are working on that platform, let them optimize in the way that they wanted to optimize. And unfortunately, this is one of the challenges, right, that they they

were optimizing to be too permissionless um with no compromises. Um and I think that what we've seen is as much as that is triggering for you know the ideological you know wing of of uh you know Ethereum right um and even Bitcoin arguably um that that it's really hard to build something and oneshot it. It's really hard to build something and just land the perfect thing and be like here is my perfect permissionless thing. Um and it's it's even harder I think to you know look at Ethereum right Ethereum has somehow threaded this is why Ethereum is such an impressive thing to exist in the

world right it's somehow threaded this needle of being like decentralized enough to not get captured over the course of the last decade right but also evolve and iterate like that is a wild achievement maybe more important than like even the network itself um very few things uh are are have been able to achieve that. Um and so you know my my shift I think in in my thinking has been that if we acknowledge the fact that centralized entities dominate crypto, dominate our lives, right? If we're going to attack them, we need to have a path that is a credible path forward, right? So, it's okay to have some centralization

and iterate away from that over time and become more permissionless because if we have 10 different uh super apps that are all iterating trying to solve this problem, right? We only need one to win to blow away all of centralized exchanges, >> right? >> I I agree. Why don't you just merge synthetics and Infinex and have synthetics be the thing that I what you're doing with synthetics right now is taking on Hyperl, right? But then it's like Hyperlid is embedded into it's like I don't know I'm trying to put myself in your shoes because Infinex is building per on top of Hyperlid but Synthetics is competing with Hyperlid.

You're at an office right now where you have Synthetics employees and uh Infinex employees together. Um I don't Yeah. Why do like Why are you doing this with two separate companies? You it seems like you're making it seems like you're making life your life tougher basically. I don't know. >> Yeah. I I don't know about that. Right. like um I think that there is um something that is very important about specialization right is trying to build the best per decks onchain per deck right um and it's not even really competing with hyperlid it's competing with Binance Hyperl's competing with Binance like the >> we're all competing with Binance here >> yeah like we've only captured a tiny

fraction of Binance's market share right so um you know Hyperlid if you compare against centralized exchanges is like still, you know, for OI on most markets like not even in the top 20, right? Um, so there's still a lot of work to do and and my view is we need multiple perexes to try and take down the centralized exchanges the same way we need multiple super apps to try and take down centralized exchanges from like a custody and storage perspective. Um so it would be a huge distraction and waste of time and effort for the Infinex team to be so focused on one narrow vertical which is uh which is you know building a perex. Um the job of building a super app is incredibly hard. Um we've we've

demonstrated that over the last two years right but our job is not to build protocols. Our job is not to deploy contracts on chain. Our job is to integrate things um and do it in the best way possible with no compromises. Synthetics is there to build the best decks with no compromises. And if you put them together, they'd both be compromising and it would end up being a worse result. >> Yeah. Why is um so you published this piece TGE death uh TGE death march a week or two ago. Why is now the right time for a token?

Um, I think we are just about to get to the point where Infinex can actually take over your onchain life >> after after a lot of work and effort and and you know, we've had good features, but we haven't been able to credibly say, you know, like throw away Phantom, throw away Metamas, throw away Rabby, throw away your Ledger. Um, you can now bring all of your stuff into Infinex and do everything that you want to do more easily. using Infinex than whatever you're using today. And we until we felt comfortable to be able to say that it didn't make sense to do TGE.

>> Was there one thing Kane like was it the support for you know 20 chains or was it was it the browser extension or was it the vault like was it >> it's browser extension plus wallet import. Those are the two things. >> Extension plus wallet import. >> Wallet import is wallet import and like seed phrase. Oh. Oh. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. You can you can import your existing MetaMask wallet. You don't have to transfer a deposit or move stuff around. You go, I'm done. Like and we saw this with MetaMask and Rabby. Rabby was able to like absolutely, you know, like chop a huge chunk of market share away from MetaMask with in the nicest possible way, not that much better of an experience, right? Infinex is an order

of magnitude better than the existing experience you have with Phantom or MetaMask. The fact that you have a platform that can manage all of your assets and can bridge and swap for you really easily. The fees are much lower. Like everything about it is just much better. But if you had to convince people to deposit all of their assets or move all their assets from all their different wallets in MetaMask into Infinex, we tried that. It didn't work. It's too hard. it's too too much effort. Um, but just import your seed phrase and you know and again we saw this with Rabby, we saw this with Phantom to some extent, right? Like Phantom was able to pull a lot of assets out of uh the Ethereum ecosystem just by making it really easy to bring your wallet across.

>> Yeah. How do you think about the role of a token? Is it a cap is it a capital raise? Is it like an incentive mechanism to take the action that you want people to take? What is the role of the token? >> I So to go back to your point about onchain businesses, right? Um, Infinex is an onchain business. So, the the role of the token is a way to capture the value of revenue that's generated by the platform um, and distribute it. It's it's just a coordination layer for the financial engineering of the thing, right? Um so you know my strong view is that uh token buybacks with revenue are the optimal structure and having tried it in different ways. We tried dividends with synthetics for a long time and it

kind of worked but um it it creates uh a strong disincentive for passive holders who are not like actively doing things in the network to hold the token. Um which you know I think we know from Tradfi like most people are passive holders. They're not active holders. It's a small minority of people. So, we need to be able to to, you know, accommodate and incentivize passive holders holding a token and feeling like they're getting a benefit from the thing that they're supporting. >> Yeah. The number one thing that you guys will incentivize for the token in what I understand is like phase one is importing the wallet. Is that right?

>> Yeah. >> Got it. Got it. So, you know, we've had a really interesting few weeks, right, with like Mega Ethan Monad and the airdrop and all of this stuff. Um, and so we've been watching really closely um how how people have been reacting to these different schemes that that uh Megita and Monet have cooked up. Um, and it's been like just invaluable data. >> Yeah. What have you learned? I think the most important takeaway for me from Monad definitely is um complexity without clarity creates a lot of frustration

>> and you think Monad struggled with that? >> I I think they did a lot of very complicated and complex things which could have been fun but were instead frustrating for people. Is that a message more about Monad as a whole, not just >> Look, I mean I'm a Monad investor. I'm I'm a Same. Yeah, >> I'm a fan. Um, and you know, again, like everyone everyone who does something big in crypto, you're going to have some wins and some misses, right? It's fine. Like you got to you got to put yourself out there. And I think, you know, the fact that they've gone hard on this has been uh attention is the most important resource in crypto, right? So from that perspective, it has been wild. Even even the three-day campaign, I was clicking

my boxes. Yeah. Like Yeah. Yeah. >> You know, it's it's funny though, right? Because um my my kids have Pudgy Penguins, so they got um a Monad uh airdrop, right? So my son the last three days has woken up and he's like, "Can we open the boxes?" And I'm like, "What boxes are you talking about?" He's like, he's like, "The Monad boxes." So like it's working. Like he he knows Monad now, right? Like he's he's a fan. But then my daughter opened one of her boxes and got like 35 monad and she's like I'm gonna throw this computer out the window and I was like okay >> that is soing she was she was raing and so so you know again I think going back to the point about like complexity without clarity. Um it's fine to make

people jump through hoops and delay gratification and you know spread out the attention or whatever. Um, but when people had no idea what was going on, like is day two the worst day, is it the best day? Is there something else coming? I think it creates this uh very high likelihood of um of disappointment because people inflate what may be coming and then the reality is disappointing to them. And I think that, you know, one of the one of the solutions of that is like being really clear about what the rules are and what will happen. And if you don't get what you want, at least you're not disappointed because you kind of had a sense of what was going to happen ahead of time, you can introduce a little bit of variability or or RNG into it. Um,

but if it's RNG with like complete opacity, I think people get frustrated because then they roll the like if I say to you like, "Okay, here I'm going to give you uh, you know, some dice and and roll it, right?" And you roll a 12 and you're like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Actually, 12's bad. Sorry, bro. You're out." And you're like, "What the why is 12?" Like, "I rolled two. I rolled double." I'm like, "Yeah, you're supposed to roll snake eyes." And you're like, "You like, >> I didn't know that. I didn't know. >> I didn't know that. I would have rolled snake eyes if you told me." It's like, "No, you wouldn't. It's RNG." Like, you just rolled two dice. But like, you're just mad because you're like, "Why didn't you tell me?"

>> So, >> so you want to be more you you want But it's tough though because you want to be you uh you want clarity, but the but you can't give too much clarity so that it gets gamed. >> Yes. >> Exactly. Exactly. But here's the thing. You can't game a [ __ ] dice roll. So why make it opaque? >> You know what I mean? Like if someone's going to roll like, you know, a 20sided die and if they hit a 20, they get $1,000 and if they hit anything else, they get nothing. Just [ __ ] tell them. Like it it doesn't need to be a mystery of like, oh, you got a 20. What does that mean? And then you come back tomorrow and we'll tell you. Like that I think is honestly to autist like super frustrating. Yeah, I I think so, too.

>> This episode is brought to you by Zcash, the decentralized digital cash that is encrypted to ensure agency and safety. With a fixed supply of 21 million and proofof work consensus, Zcash is encrypted Bitcoin. Buy, store, and spend encrypted Bitcoin using the Zcash powered mobile wallet, Zashi. To find out more, visit their website or click the link in the show notes. Thanks to Zcash for making today's episode possible. Shout out to today's sponsor, Katana. Katana is a DeFi first chain built for deep liquidity and high yield.

No empty emissions, just real yield and sequencer fees routed back to DeFi users. Incubated by Polygon Labs and GSR, Katana is launching with notable ecosystem of primitives, assets, and partners like Morpho, Chainlink, and more. Katana's 1 billion CAT campaign is live. bridge and deposit directly into vaults in one simple click and start earning immediately on your Ether, Bitcoin, USDC, and more. Follow the link in today's show notes to get started. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk terms and conditions apply.

I noted there's a line in your TGE death march thing that said, um, hold on, where was it? We will incentivize users to switch to Infinex by importing existing wallets and connecting socials. Tell me why connecting socials is so important. And my my my theory here is uh building on onchain kind of sucks because you don't know your users. You have no user data and connecting socials is just the easiest way to get user data to know that if is this person in the US or in Australia. Is that is that right? >> I think it's it's part of it. Um, at the end of the day, you know, I I said this earlier, like attention is the most important resource in crypto, right? Um, so people some people have attention, some people have uh, you know, the

potential to drive fees or revenue, right? Um, some people have both, but oftent times they don't, right? Like sometime, you know, there's a non whales that do a ton of volume on Hyperlquid and have no audience. they they don't have a Twitter presence or a Telegram or whatever. Um they might be in like private groups, but they're not going to drive any attention to the project, right? Um and and so knowing what the attentional value of a social account uh is is is really important. Now, this can be gamed, right? So, when we did our first campaign of connecting Twitter uh to Infinex, um one bot farm connected 10,000 Twitter accounts in the space of

>> who's running these bot farms. >> I don't know, dude. It's crazy. Like, and you know, it's like anything there's levels, right? So, like this is an unsophisticated brute forced like 10,000 Twitter accounts, right? Then there was another one that was like 3,000 that was much better orchestrated, right? Like you still have your like crack data guy helping you figure this. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He he just like absolutely eviscerates these guys. Um and then you know as you go up the levels the the civil farms get better and better like their their methods get more sophisticated and they get harder to track etc. Um but most people are just like super low effort.

>> Yeah. Okay. So that's phase one. You incentivize so people connect their wallet. What is fa How do you think about like the second phase? So, so this is very much like um work in progress, right? Like like a thing that we're iterating on and and for what it's worth, I'm still waiting to see like the final result. You know, the Monad golden ticket thing like mainet day or whatever like we're we're going to hold off and try and get gather as much data as possible and see >> what what is that? Do you know? >> No.

>> No. It's crazy. >> I know, right? But that's fine. And that actually honestly I don't hate it. It makes you stick around. It makes you >> log in on mainet day and be like, "What did I get? >> What did I get?" But here's the problem. Here's the problem. Right? You give someone you give 10,000 people a golden ticket, right? Now, >> everyone gets a golden >> You've created like a massive expectation up here, right? That you inevitably will not be able to deliver. Like how much is a golden ticket worth to you? Like for me, gold tickets should be a million bucks. If you don't give me a million bucks, then I'm fing the [ __ ] out.

>> I think I think you Ponzi scheme it and you keep it going as long as possible so that it's like >> you got a diamond ticket. You're going to turn into a diamond ticket. >> If you make a trade next week on Mon on this deck, >> you know, you double down and then if you >> then you turn into then you turn honestly you turn into like, you know, I enjoy you know uh campaigns where it's just never ending. you're grinding, you know, into oblivion and and again, the bigger it gets, the more people you attract, the more disappointment you're going to create, right? So, one of the one of the things that I think has been very interesting this cycle is the evolution of the airdrop meta, right? So, >> I'm sure you guys know this because you

have data people. Um, we definitely know it. I think most projects who've done an airdrop know this, right? 98 to 100% of people dump airdrops. Like almost no one doesn't dump their airdrop right? >> 98%. >> Dude, it's crazy. >> I didn't actually know that. I didn't know. >> Like when you when you look at some like I saw some data a couple weeks ago where where someone had like over time like as you get you know maybe on the first day it's 80%. By the time you get to day 30, it's like 95% and then event, you know, eventually everyone sells, right? Which it makes sense. Like no one's going to marry an airdrop bag for the rest of your life, right? Eventually you're going to sell it. Um, so almost everyone

sells. So if almost everyone sells, um, and the original intent behind an airdrop was, you know, go back to the ICO meta, right? Haven did an airdrop. The reason why we did an airdrop was to drive attention. We wanted people talking about the project. People thought there was going to be a big airdrop, which there was. They came and talked about it. It drove attention, created a flywheel, etc. That's how you break through the noise floor. >> Um, then it kind of evolved to people thought you were buying loyalty. >> Like, I want to buy Yano's love. >> Who's loyalty?

>> Well, like crypto Twitter, like crypto users, right? Like I'm going to give you 10 grand and you're going to like the project, >> right? But if you dump it straight away like you might kind of be like >> oh by giving an airdrop you are buying loyalty. I understand. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. >> That was like I think a lot of founders genuinely believed that that was what they were doing right. >> Optimism definitely did and you know I was close to that one right like there was a view of like we're rewarding the community. This is a reciprocal thing.

Well, that came out of unis swap which is people I mean there were there were hundreds maybe even thousands of probably hundreds of like you would see these Twitter posts every day was like I that changed my life. I am forever indebted to Hayden and I think other founders were like I want people about me. Yeah. >> Yeah. The problem is you know you can only do that so many times right you can't be indebted to 10 founders right so you know Hayden kind of captured that wave and and that's kind of it right. So, okay, if everyone's going to dump your token, no one's going to hold it, everyone's going to forget about you because they're just chasing the next one, then what is the point of this exercise, right? And so, I had this tweet thread a couple weeks ago where I said, I think the evolution is the point

of this is it's blood money. It's protection money. You're basically paying I'm paying you to not fund me. >> But what if I sell the token? You're still probably not going to FUD me. You're just not going to care >> because you pay. Yeah. Oh, I see. Yeah. >> You're like in like I don't need you to shill the project. I just need you to not FUD it. Right. And the expectation and this is, you know, human expectations evolving over time, right? The expectation is if Monad gives you no dollars, you know, an important guy, then those guys and I'm going to FUD them. And maybe you

don't do it on the timeline. Maybe you do it quietly in like a back room, but like you're going to be like, "How dare you not pay me my the money that I'm actually a really interesting case study because that round, what was everyone did the round >> 300 or 700 mil, something like that." >> I think mine was 600, but >> Okay. >> Uh I forget. I don't >> whatever it was. I didn't do it. >> Yeah, I did the earlier round. >> Everybody Everybody did it. And they were only taking small checks. is like 10 or 20k. And I've been thinking about that round um cuz we've been thinking about like what you know fundraising and what that could look like and what's the strategy and do you go to two two venture funds or do you get a thousand angels on board and monad just got

everyone not to love them because if you if you know that you're one of a thousand you >> you don't care but you you have you have like soft affinity for them. >> Yes. Like I have strong affinity for teams where I've preede I know I'm one of like four angels like ride or die for that founder. You know we did a similar thing with our patient sale. We got like 500 of like you know Monad got like a 100red or 200 or something. We got like 500. We got almost everyone. We got Stanny, Robert, Tuli, Raj like almost everyone.

We went rounded them all up and made them buy patrons. Um, Vitalic patrons like it was pretty crazy. >> You convinced me in a taxi cab and uh >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so, so everyone So, you know, we got everyone to buy a patron NFT, right? Which they >> you guys had very good social proofing too. You had the you had like it was like right after I bought it like my face went up on the website. I was like, "Oh, I see what's happening here." >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And so, so now, right, we probably don't need to airdrop to you because you're 4x up on that trade, right? You bought a couple patrons, you're like 4, 8x up. It feels good. And the thing is, you know, you can give someone free money or you can let them buy something at a cheap price.

And so, this is the counterpoint we're seeing with Mega ETH right now. Mega E is like, we're not going to airdrop [ __ ] to you guys because you're just going to dump on us, but we will let you buy tokens cheaply, right? Um, and so you know that is a very different approach to the same problem, right? Um, but the the end result as you say, same thing with Monet is like K is a good guy. I'm not going to FUD him even if he makes a mistake, right? Someone else makes a mistake that didn't give you any money and you're like burn the guy like burn down. I don't care. Like I like >> and and especially if someone fades you, right? Especially if someone gives money to other people and not you. Someone does a big airdrop and you get nothing.

Then you're like, "All right, now it's on." like and and so this is where airdrops I feel like have have kind of evolved where there is a sense of entitlement in like the crypto Twitter inner circle right that like give me money >> or I'll burn your store down >> I don't know anything could happen >> you know I've been following Monad and Mega Ethan I actually kind of like the um you know I I like both of them I like Monad a lot you know but uh can't say bad things about >> the system works the system works I love boxes. I love that I got a box.

>> I do like that Mega ETH is not just giving people money. I think there's um you know, we saw this with our conferences. Like we've played with every conference ticketing strategy in the game. And at one point we were like, well, sponsors are where the money is. Let's just get thousands of people to fill a room. Let's give them the tickets for free. When you give t people tickets for free, the no-show rate on an event is 65%. >> Yeah. If you make people just pay $10, the no-show rate falls to 15%. Yeah. >> So, and $10 is no matter >> it's it's literally the difference between zero, right? It's like choice paralysis, right? Like the difference between zero and $1 is a lot is like it's a it's a not a quantity.

>> We could we could have charged $1 for the ticket. It's just that taking out the credit card. So I I actually really like what Mega ETH is doing >> and and so you know again giving like the problem with giving out a bunch of money um in an airdrop is it's hyper inefficient right so it's not so much that we don't want anyone to dump the token right that that I think is like everyone's going to dump the token so if you're going to do an airdrop everyone's going to dump it right so you can't prevent people dumping on you what you don't want to do is leak a bunch of value to civils and bot farmers and terrorists and all of these people that are just going to dump the token that have no value like it's just it's just a

very high cost that you will never recoup, right? Um if you could go around and you know and this is where like it's it's kind of frustrating, right? That um that uh Elon unwound some of the crypto integrations that happened on X, right? Like imagine if you could go around and just airdrop directly to all of these Twitter accounts. You just go and make a list of every Twitter account, >> how much attention they have. You give Kobe a million bucks so he doesn't FUD you. Then you go through and like to Vitalic.

>> Do you think Do you think Kobe is the most valuable person on crypto Twitter? >> 100%. >> Do you think that Do you think Who's the second and third? I think you know there's different different uh types of value right >> there's different types of value for everybody but then there's Kobe in a class of zone so maybe a different question is like what >> sorry so like I would say Vitalic is the second most right and used in the right way Vitalic is more valuable than Kobe >> which is what Mega E >> it's optimism mega like like you know Vitalic is a scarce resource in a way that Kobe is not as much, right? Like Kobe's on the timeline interacting with people, rat showing everything.

>> Vitalic, it's more the Vitalic blessing. Vitalic bless this project. >> If you get anointed by Vitalic, right? Like that's that's a different thing, right? Um and you know, it's interesting, right? Because you look at uh like Tuli and and Raj for example. Um they do a ton of seed investments similar to like Vitalic did like a ton of seed investments in the early days, right? Um but Tuli and Raj do a ton of seed investments in the Salana ecosystem. So it becomes not as much of a scarce resource, right? But if Tuli writes something about your project, like takes the time to like write a couple of tweets about it, that's ultra valuable in in the Salana ecos. Um, so you know, different people for different things. But yeah, this cycle Kobe is in

a different Why do you think that is? >> Um, I think there's a a lot of reasons, right? um up only from last cycle was like the thing that everyone would be talking about almost every week, right? >> But it was the thing because Kobe was already Kobe. >> I don't I think it was a bit of both. A bit of both, right? Like Kobe was already Kobe for sure. Um and you know, but up only I think cemented especially for people in that cycle, right? You know, the the hardest thing in crypto like most people watch >> those are still legendary episodes with Suzu and Yeah. Yeah.

>> Like but most people are washed after one cycle. Like most people you you like you hear about them, you know, people like 2017 cyclers like 2021 people have never even heard of them, let alone someone from 2025, right? Yeah. a bunch of people that you >> I asked a group of our um of uh new people if they knew you and people were not were not aware unfortunately and I was like wow that's nuts to me. >> No 100%. Like DeFi summer like I know it was a thing right and you know the reason why people wash out is like if you're not grinding and I wasn't. I took a year off and that year that I took off like late 21 uh into 22 like that's like you can't get that back, right? Um, so I

think I think um, you know, Kobe's consistency, same thing with Stanny. Stanny's been >> consist to a solid year and a half off too. >> He did. He did. I think >> I my on Kobe is uh, it's because of how much money he's turned down. And it's uh, in an industry like so a wash with under the table deals and money and stuff like that. I think uh Kobe remember when Kobe sent someone like 10 million bucks or he like burned five million and yeah it was uh he's a I don't know I got in a a Twitter spat with him over our movement labs piece >> which >> and I was like oh my god never again he's the man he cooked you guys >> but you can't you can't win he's

>> no no you can't win >> it's arguing he's a man of the people he's it's arguing with Trump like it you can't use any logic it's you it's a man Yeah. I don't know. It was very interesting learning that I will not do again. >> Yeah. No, do not take Kobe on over timeline. Right. And and you know, I think the thing about Kobe um not to to glaze him too hard, right, but like uh he is incredibly funny. >> Like he's right. And so he's funnier than you. So you're not going to win on that dimension either, right? And like in Twitter, like if you're in a Twitter feud and someone, you know, cooks you with a oneliner, like doesn't matter.

Like it's over. Like >> I was trying to use all this logic and then your >> account. I was like, shut it down for the day. Just shut it down. >> Yeah. Just shut Twitter down and move on with your life. >> Just shut it down. Maybe I'll go ahead. >> No, no, that's it. Like just like >> this episode is brought to you by Geonet, the world's largest decentralized RTK network delivering real time centimeter accurate positioning around the globe. Powering technologies that enable precise navigation for drones, autonomous vehicles, first responders, farmers, and robotics. Geodet shows that blockchain can be a truly transformative force by delivering realtime centimeter level accuracy. Geodet enhances emergency

response, boosts construction precision, and enables advanced navigation for drones and surveyors far beyond the limits of standard GPS. To find out more, click the link in the show notes or follow them on X. As always, investments in blockchain technology involve risk, terms, and conditions apply. Maybe on a more personal note, just like longevity in crypto. I mean, how do you think about I know you've had your I don't know if you're comfortable talking about some of your own health stuff and uh like that journey there, but I think there's I mean, this cycle I've seen more burnout than even like last cycle there was burnout, but it was from working 20 hours a day.

>> Um but we had so much dopamine like it was like dopamine being injected every day. This cycle is like it's a very very very different feeling. And so I'm actually seeing a lot more people burn out this cycle. >> I think honestly it's it's who you know and who you pay attention to. You're seeing people from 2017 >> crash out now on their third cycle, which is typically when it happens, right? Um >> that's right. >> And and so um you know, it's who it's who's in your circle of influence, right? Like >> and your circle crashed out last cycle, you're saying?

>> Yeah, a lot of those people crashed out last cycle, right? like you know people that I was paying attention to in like you know 2015 1617 or whatever and like in 20 I remember some people crashing out in like 2017 2018 like big like big Bitcoin guys but then you go back to like uh like 2021 and so many Bitcoiners crashed out dude so many >> Yeah they did but if you weren't paying attention to them in 2016 2017 if they weren't the accounts you were following then you could be totally >> forgiven suck to be a Bitcoiner it was the worst cycle ever to be a Bitcoiner though >> and and they just crashed out hard, right? Like um so you know I mean there it's like for so many re anyway. So, so I think like it depends, but doing three

cycles in a row is insanity. And I, you know, I look back on on um 2021, 2022 um and I I had a tweet thread about this like you know, when I started uh when I started synthetics in in 2017, I had already been running another startup for three years straight, like grinding hard, right? So, it wasn't like I I just came out of like a consulting job and and was like, I'm going to get into crypto and, you know, was like on the bench ready to go fully powered up, right? Like I was already cooked by the time I I started synthetics, but um I felt I felt, you know, uh compelled to kind of jump in fully into crypto. Um

but I had done like four different startups before that. So, you know, I like my my kind of uh power meter um you know, at 35 after doing 10 years of startups was like not super high. Um and so postde summer, yeah, like I I I wash out hard. I was like, I don't want to work anymore. I've been working forever. Like what's the point? Like, you know, like I've worked so hard. I've gotten to this point. Like, you know, the thing's working. um like let some other people grind for a while. Um and I took time off which was not good for me mentally.

It turns out that I kind of need to grind um and I lost my mind. But that late 21 into 22, losing that period of time and not not paying attention to the space, not building, not um you know, not paying attention to the meta, etc. um set me back massively. And so I've been having to like work so much harder. >> Really? >> You don't think it was helpful to get a mental break and clarity and read the book on the hammock? >> H >> I know that's not what you did, but uh >> it's not what I did. No, I went on a drug binge for a year, right? And so, you know, which is not great for you. Um but like you know, I think >> was Kane was that correlated with having

more money than you ever thought that you would have? Was like No, >> no. like it was it was correlated with having more uh um more flexibility, more more uh more opportunity to be chaotic, right? Um you know, previously um I was always like this simmering boil of like drug addiction, right? But it was kind of tamped down by like a balance of like, well, I've got to work. I'm grinding. I know what I'm trying to get to, right? I'm trying to to build something, you know, that's really valuable. Um, and I'm I'm going to keep grinding until I get there. And it was like a little bit of a like relief valve, right? Like drug addiction was

just like get a little bit of, you know, uh, let some of the steam out of the cooker, right? Um, and then I got to 2021 and I was like, well, I don't have to do anything anymore. I can do whatever I want. And that that mantra of I can do whatever I want because I could was the thing that almost killed me. Because just because you can do whatever you want doesn't mean that what you want to do is >> do you say that literally about almost killed me. >> Yeah. Like when I went to rehab the the like first week that I was there, one of the guys uh one of the therapists there was like you the trajectory you were on two years you're dead. And I was like you don't know me. I'll be totally fine.

I was like, I've been doing drugs for 30 years, bro. You like get the out of my face. Like literally like I was like so pissed, right? Which is always a interesting, you know. >> Did you I don't This is too personal, by the way. We can we can >> Whatever. No, it's fine. >> Did you do Did you have to go Did you do rehab and then relapse and then back to rehab? Did you relapse? >> No. No. I actually managed to go to rehab once and and learn my lesson or something, right? Um and and so but it was funny, right? Like I was in rehab for six weeks and I later spoke to the guy who was the founder of that place and he was like after you left there was you and another guy that forced us to realize that six weeks is not enough and

we now have a 12-week program. He's like I'm actually surprised that you survived out in the world after you left. >> You are back. Yeah, >> dude. Like literally like cuz cuz like five weeks in right I was like okay okay all right maybe I can't like maybe I can't drink and do drugs anymore after five weeks I was like maybe right like maybe and then I was like no I'm definitely going to drink again which was insane right because like the drinking would lead to doing drugs and then you know it was it was the whole spiral right and so the idea that like I could go out and like have a few drinks was like insane. Um and so yeah, so

>> I'm actually surprised that you came to that conclusion in five weeks. That to me feels Yeah. very >> It was intense. It was so like honestly and like you know, but the first four weeks I was like as soon as I get out of here I'm going to do some ketamine and drink a bottle of champagne. It's going to be amazing. >> Like I was like not convinced at all that there was anything wrong with anything that I had been doing. I was like, I just need a little break just to like tone it down and then we'll be back back on the on the streets again. Like it was crazy, right? Um and and so yeah, so and the crazy thing is um literally like two years to the day, one of my closest friends who was an addict with me, one of my like, you know, big addict

friends died like two years later. >> And so, you know, I was like I was like, "Holy [ __ ] like that guy was right." Even though there's a part there's still a part like a brain damaged part of me that's like that guy like he doesn't know me. I could have kept doing drugs. I would have been fine. Um I would have been dead. Like there's no question. There were multiple times where like it's crazy that I woke up like crazy. So >> yeah. >> Do you believe in the idea that everybody needs a vice? >> Um no I don't think so. That sounds like code to me.

>> Yeah. Yeah. What do you do now to channel energy to let the the cooker offer off for whatever reason? >> Well, you know, I'm I'm back to like uh grinding again, you know, like 18 hours a day. Um but the difference is and this is a big difference, right? Um my my kind of way of handling any stress or whatever. I didn't feel stress. I just like tamp it down, right? Then go and drink or do some drugs or whatever to like just try and dissipate it. But it didn't work. But I thought it did. But I was completely disconnected from like any sense of like my own feelings or whatever. I was just like an automaton like just going through life doing stuff. Um and this time building a a startup um you know there's a bunch of

people around me and like I'm just much more aware of the people around me how they're reacting to things. Um much more aware of my own biases creeping in. It's been much much easier to do a startup not being a drug addict, which >> shouldn't be controversial, but like, >> you know, it's kind of wild I was able to pull it off the first time, but uh but yeah, it's definitely been easier, I would say, to not be uh like, dude, not being hung over. I'm never hung over. I never wake up. I used to wake up, you cannot even imagine the level of hangover that I was able to sustain.

Like, dude, I remember one time I was in New York for um SmartCon um for the the Chainlink thing um and I'd been partying for two days straight and I rolled out of bed on two hours sleep and got on stage. The video is out there somewhere. Like if you can find that video, it was like from 20 2021 SmartCon or something like that. Like how I was saying anything that was even close to coherent, >> I have no idea. Like I have no idea. And I'm sure if you go back and watch it now, you'd be like, "That guy's >> probably did some more drugs or something." I don't know.

>> Yeah, probably. Yeah. >> Um, has it is it easier to as someone who's on you're I don't know, you're on your sixth startup or seventh startup. Is it easier to does it get easier? Basically, >> uh, every startup's different. Um, and you make different mistakes. Um, I've made different mistakes this time than than I did in the past. Um, one of the biggest mistakes that I made this time, um, was, you know, I'm not resource constrained, right? I can do I could, you know, kind of swing for the fences.

It's a little bit like having leverage trading, right? If you're forced to spot trade because, you know, you're just trying to build up a bag and, you know, you've got conviction and it's a slow kind of process. You accumulate some BTC or whatever. Um, it's much less volatile. Um, but if you are trading on leverage, um, or you know, you're swinging for the fences, uh, it's much more volatile. It's easy to kind of go down the wrong path. It's easy to make a bad trade, get on tilt. Um, so that's definitely been the hardest part I would say of of building Infinex is like I haven't been I had to learn to enforce kind of discipline and and resource constraints on myself because I don't

have them in in the real world. >> You you're not selfunding anymore, right? You put in like what 25 million of your own money, but you're not anymore. >> I'm not selfunding you. you know, we raised we did the NFT sale, but the first the first 18 months I I put about 20 mil in my own money. >> Um, >> so I was like, I have my money. I can do whatever I want. Like, but that's like again anytime if I'm within 100 feet of you and you hear me say I can do whatever I want. Run. It's going to get [ __ ] ugly. >> Or just like chain you down. Be like, >> "Tackle me." Even better. Tackle me.

Tackle. >> Um, maybe we can wrap by talking about this cycle because it's been a been a funky one and you you've seen many of them. So, uh, Berniski tweeted the other day said, "Private market valuations like this, like these have always come near the top for crypto." And you said near being the critical word here. >> Maybe just expand on like where you think we're at. >> You know, again, I think I think towards the end of any cycle, and this cycle has been going for two years now, right? Started in the trenches in Salana in 2023, the the first green shoots, right? in the same way that like early DeFi a few things started to kind of you know come out of winter in in early 2019. Um I think it started in in 2023. So it's been two years. So if you've been in the

trenches that entire time like well played because that's hard, right? People are getting to the point in the cycle where they're exhausted, right? And it you know the the vicious irony if you haven't been through a full cycle before. Um, if you've only like, you know, come in at the peak of 2021, dealt with a bare market, and now you've been going through a bull market for two years, um, you think that a bare market sounds good. Like, you think like, oh man, like this has been so exhausting.

And then two weeks into it, you're like, actually, this this is terrible. I hate it. Um, but I think we're at that point in the cycle where people are starting to be like, just let just let me get off the merrygoround for like a minute. The problem is when when you do then you're in a bare market for two years and everything's harder and you know it's >> But do you think it'll be as hard? Do you think that they get you know because 20 22 was was and 2023 sucked but it was far less hard than 2018 and 2019. >> Agreed. It just depend I mean depends on which cycle it is for you. If you you know if 2021 was your first cycle you full ported in like August 2021 bro 22 was a bad year for you like

>> a bad year that is a bad year. >> Yeah. >> So you know depends on the baseline. >> That's fair. >> That's fair. Um what should what should people who are listening who are excited about Infinex but don't really know what to do as the next step? What what should people do? Should they import their wallet? Should they like switch? You guys have swap plus bridge switch. should you they switch some money over like what what should they what should people do? >> So, uh all of this stuff is going to be released in the next like two to three weeks. Um so so you know you can kind of frontr run it a little bit by uh setting up your Infinex account. Um but when we get ready to do this big bang launch where you know you can import your

existing MetaMask wallet or Phantom wallet or Rabby or whatever um and you can start actually bringing your activity over to Infinex and start doing the things that you um are currently doing somewhere else on Infinex um that's when we're going to put you know full force of everything behind it. So, if you're watching this and you want to frontr run it, then get an Infinex account and like get acquainted with the platform. But you won't be able to do all of this cool fun stuff that we're talking about, you know, the browser extension, etc. Um, until like probably, you know, mid mid November, another couple weeks.

>> Yeah, I would actually, if there's people listening to this who are building things in in crypto, I I would recommend just setting up your Infinex. It was um when you and I showed it to me in Singapore like a year ago maybe not at not at this token but the one before. My reaction I remember I was with Oscar. We were like oh I didn't know you could do this with an onchain app. Like even the finger the fingerprint thing on my MacBook like I was like oh I didn't I didn't know this was possible. So um yeah I would recommend people just use it just to just almost see what's what the future starts to look like. >> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. >> Kane thanks man. Always good seeing you. >> Awesome. Yeah. Great to chat. Talk soon. [Music]