December 21, 2025 • 25 mins
Especially during times like these, it's important for the crypto industry to remind itself of its first principles that started the whole thing to begin with. Every cycle, when the hype gets too much, people tend to forget - but what keeps the movement alive are the fundamentals of what got people excited to begin with.
"No Debt" - The fact that you cannot go into debt in crypto is something that's understated, even now. Satoshi was originally envisioning a world where 2008 and a debt-based economy was literally not possible - and is much more radical than most people give it credit for.
"Not Your Keys, Not Your Coin" - This phrase went away as exchanges got more popular and people started getting lazy with self-custody, but it's still the only real way to protect yourself from outside forces
"Your Wallet, Your Identity" - the bigger aspirations for crypto wallets was to become an identity platform, that was supposed to replace email by making it more secure and portable. True crypto proponents should be encouraging people to use their wallet addresses to build up history/credibility at all times, otherwise the system just doesn't work.
"Verify, Not Trust" - Permissionless systems only work when trust is not needed. Show, not tell.
"Incentives Are Everything" - Crypto was supposed to be a testing ground for alternative economic models, by offering new and innovative incentive structures to make business models more sustainable and efficient.
The challenge for the industry is that these things need to happen all at the same time, or the system will not work. These big picture issues can't be solved with startups working on one thing in isolation - it needs to be "all or nothing" or you might as well not be doing it at all.
A lot of these ideas got watered down during the hype cycle but I'm hoping that people will come back around to it eventually.
---
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello everyone, this is Ryan from Teya Cafe.
So right now the markets incrypto ain't doing so well, if
you have noticed.
Uh but is it really a surprise,really?
Right?
I'm there's no one else moredeep in this industry than me.
(00:25):
And believe me, I'm not toohappy about the price right now
either.
But at the same time, I have tobe honest, I am not surprised.
Even uh up until like six monthsago, I was saying, like, yeah,
Tezos might go to a quarter.
It was like a dollar at thetime, and uh markets were
(00:47):
already doing kind of badalready, so you know, people
didn't really want to hear that,I'm assuming.
But it could go that low.
Um, and I'm prepared for it, butit still hurts, right?
And part of the reason why isthat the market is currently
(01:09):
correcting itself, and it doesneed to hit a bottom before we
have any chance of it going backup.
Because if you look at FTX,especially, right?
That was the most egregiousexample.
But there are still companiesout there basically running
sponsies, scam, meme coins, rugpulls, you know, all those
(01:32):
things.
They're still going on, it'sbecoming less profitable because
people are going broke, but thatreally has dominated the
headlines of when people talkabout uh crypto these days, and
it's not really her uh helpingour reputation, so to speak,
right?
(01:53):
So um, so yeah, when as if aswith any other bubble, and this
has happened in previous cryptocycles as well.
I saw something similar happenduring 2016-2018, where people
caught the ICO bug, and they didtalk about NFTs a bit, crypto
(02:16):
punks, crypto kiddies, thosesorts of projects.
Back then they were very, verynovel and interesting.
But as with all hype cycles,they take it too far, it sort of
hits a limit, and then thebubble pops and it goes back
down, right?
But it's not necessarily a badthing because when the markets
(02:37):
are doing poor, people oftenstart to reflect on, you know,
what what are we doing here?
Like, what's the whole point ofthis to begin with, right?
You do you sort of ask yourselfthose deeper questions about
what um the movement wassupposed to be.
(02:58):
So I feel like a lot of peoplebasically just kind of forgot
about it during the hype cyclebecause it was just like money
flying everywhere, right?
Especially in like 2021 wheneverything was shooting up.
Uh, the crypto industry was likeuh even Wall Street was like
nervous because there it wasgrowing so fast that you know it
(03:20):
could have been a big threat tothem.
But as you know how that turnedout, uh it kind of culminated
with FTX because there's a lotof um fraud and you know, just
like not good things going on.
So now's a chance for people torevisit why crypto was invented
(03:45):
to begin with, and this is gonnaaccompany a post that I made uh
in writing.
So I'm just kind of repeatingand expounding on some of the
things that are you can eitherchoose to read or listen to this
thing.
So either way, you know.
Okay, so um there's I listed, Iwas looking it up for a little
(04:09):
while, but I listed five firstprinciples that I think are
basically essential for anyonewho claims to understand crypto
and actually believe it in, notthe grift version that the uh
exchanges and the banks and WallStreet has been pushing on
(04:30):
people.
They just want to milk yourmoney and uh you know at your
expense, right?
They just want to make a littlebit of money at your expense,
and that's why they're there.
They don't really care aboutthese things.
So um I would be very wary ofanyone talking about this if
they're not actually doing it inpractice, right?
(04:54):
So I'll start with the first onethen.
So the first one is no debt.
So if you imagine Satoshi tryingto build a new financial system,
you gotta think about like whyand when, right?
He started working on Bitcoinright after the 2008 financial
(05:19):
crisis, and I don't think it's acoincidence that there was that
parallel, because Bitcoin reallyis sort of a statement against
what the banks were doing,especially at the time.
And one interesting thing thatdoesn't get talked about in
(05:40):
crypto, it doesn't get talkedabout enough, because it's maybe
it's so obvious that uh peopledon't bother mentioning it, but
the idea that you cannot havenegative balances in crypto
wallets is kind of a big deal.
You know, this is basicallySatoshi trying to create a
(06:03):
debtless society, and I thinkpeople often overlook how
radical that notion really was.
Because I mean, what will you dowith a negative balance on a
crypto wallet where you youliterally can't like if you
don't if it's not in positive,uh you can't uh do a
(06:25):
transaction, it will not allowit.
It's the system literally willnot allow it.
Now, there's plenty of peoplewho probably went broke betting
on crypto, but the money fromthat stuff doesn't come from
crypto itself, they're doing itthrough some other means,
through a bank or a loan or aloan shark or whatever sketchy
(06:48):
source they found, you know, tobasically fuel their gambling
addiction.
But if it's used in the way itwas intended, you should have no
debt in crypto.
So you can earn money by doingsales or maybe doing a task, but
(07:08):
you can't borrow money againstsome other external entity with
your wallet, right?
So, yeah, I just wanted to kindof remind people of that because
I do think it's a big part ofwhy this thing was created to
begin with, and it might givepeople a place to start to start
(07:30):
thinking about like what to donext.
Because part of the reason whythe industry is struggling so
much is because they made toomany ties with Wall Street and
the banks, especially theexchanges, right?
When you have a wallet on anexchange, uh that's you're not
really it's not really yours,right?
(07:52):
You're you're basically trustingthem to hold your money for you
in a traditional way, and thatkind of defeats the purpose.
So it's a lot of the uh cryptothings that happen over the last
few years is really like awatered-down version that's not
really uh part of like what wasmeant to happen.
(08:18):
So that's a good segue into thenext mantra, and these are
things people used to say butdon't say anymore.
That's kind of a that's kind ofbasically what what I'm doing
right now.
So they used to say, not yourkeys, not your coin.
Bitcoin people were actuallyvery famous for saying that
(08:40):
phrase because they reallyencouraged people to do
self-custody, which is to holdyour own wallet and store it in
uh a private key, right?
Like a private wallet.
Um there's a reason why that gotless popular, which is because
you have to eventually convertthe Bitcoin back to dollars for
(09:05):
it to be any use, right?
But at the same time, a lot ofthe uh most useful things about
crypto doesn't really comeunless you're using a real
wallet.
So uh how I use my wallet is agood example because I'm
(09:25):
involved with arts and um I tryto use my wallet for quote
forward-facing things.
I don't have my life savings onthere, of course, right?
Nobody nobody carries aroundtheir life savings in the
wallet, right?
But they do use it to like Ihave my ID card in my wallet, I
(09:45):
have some cash, a little bit ofcash to spend.
I have um credit cards, uhright.
That's that's so that's thefunction the wallet was supposed
to serve, but online, and it wasactually right supposed to like
people were supposed to be ableto identify you based on your
(10:07):
wallet, based on what's insideof the wallet, right?
Uh people but old habits diehard, and uh most people don't
really use it like that.
They kind of use it as thisdisposable thing, almost like
like uh email, right?
Or you can just sign up for afree one, use it for something
(10:30):
and just throw it awayafterwards.
It's become very disposable.
But that again, that was not theintention.
People should be using walletaddresses to build up history,
credibility, right?
Otherwise, none of this is gonnareally work.
So this also segues into thenext one, which is your wallet,
(10:54):
your identity.
So originally the idea of cryptowallets was that when they were
feeling more ambitious, theywanted people to replace things
like email or other digital IDsystems with a crypto wallet
because it's more secure, it hasa lot more information, uh the
(11:18):
transactions are transparent,right?
It was supposed to like replacelogins for websites, for
example.
And some places are still doingthat, but interestingly enough,
the only places that really dothat right now are NFTs.
You cannot log in to mostwebsites with a crypto wallet
(11:44):
unless it has to do somethingwith NFTs.
Um there's DeFi, but uh, youknow, even that that the use
cases are very limited right nowbecause most people are still
more comfortable using regularfiat money.
(12:05):
So, but that's something a bigproject that crypto is has yet
to fulfill because one of thebiggest obstacles for mass
adoption is getting people tosign up for a wallet and take it
seriously, which is very hardbecause most of the time their
first uh interactions with thesesorts of things is through
(12:27):
exchanges.
And if you have a wallet on anexchange, you're not really in
control of it, right?
It's in the agreement.
So until people start taking theidea of their wallet seriously
and are willing to attach theiridentity to it, it's gonna be a
very hard uphill battle, butit's something we just can't
(12:49):
avoid if you wanna uh for thisto like get get places.
Okay, the other part is actuallythese are all sigwing very
nicely into each other.
Uh verify not trust.
So there's been a lot ofprojects out there, and I won't
(13:10):
name names Solana, but uhthey're not really blockchains,
you know, and um they claim tobe, but when you look at how
just stuff works, uh it's justreally not true.
And the fact that uh Solanaexperienced several shutdowns
(13:32):
and there was like some verysketchy things going on with the
team and the way they uh quoterebooted things, right?
Um yeah, and and uh it's justlike there's it's there's been a
disappointing trend towards alot of crypto projects really
(13:58):
kind of abandoning the idea ofpermissionless networks because
yeah, I mean the short story isthat they just basically sold
out.
There are there are people withfiat money willing to give them
a lot of money just to not dothe thing that they were
(14:20):
supposed to do, right?
Ethereum's kind of a good caseof that because uh one, they
don't have on-chain governance,so when they make decisions, you
don't know when or where that'shappening, they're not
transparent about it in thatway.
But I've heard people just flatout say we have to trust
(14:42):
Vitalik.
Look at him, he's such a nerd,he doesn't have ulterior
motives, you know.
And that might have been truelike some years ago.
Like I was in the Ethereum ICO,so I remember Vitalik from back
then versus now.
He is not the same personanymore.
(15:03):
And he used to be more hands-on,he used to be builder, he used
to code things directly.
And you know, uh when I decidedto get in, I was like, yeah,
that's the kind of nerd I want,you know.
I want someone who cares aboutthe tech.
And at the time it was true, butnow um it's a very different
(15:24):
story.
So so yeah, so uh when I hearhim talk these days, he just
kind of throws off this wordsolid that means doesn't mean
much, and he makes a lot ofpromises that he probably knows
not is not gonna happen, youknow.
It's probably not gonna happen.
Are they gonna get on-chaingovernance?
(15:46):
He's opposed it pretty muchthroughout his whole career, so
why would it change now?
All right, so there's all thesethings going back in the
background, and uh they're justbeing basically trust me, bro.
You know, it's a trust me bromodel.
If they're trustworthy, maybe itcan work, but um the whole point
(16:08):
of crypto is that you shouldn'thave to have that trust.
Everything should be transparentas is, and with the blockchain,
that should be very easy.
The technology to do it isalready there.
It really is a uh cultureproblem, it really is a people
problem.
So that's something that theindustry is going to have to
(16:30):
contend with as well.
Okay, so for the last one, uhincentives are everything.
And um the last couple years,there's a few models out there
that people have tried out.
The most interesting part ofcrypto is actually NFPs, even
(16:56):
now, because you can arguewhether or not art is a real
product per se, but it issomething.
It is a product, it is somethingby people buy and sell, and and
they did create platforms andmodels, auction systems, like
(17:16):
those things are not easy tobuild, you know.
But they they did.
So it was supposed to be thisbig like experiment in trying
out different incentives, butunfortunately, the vast majority
of crypto projects outside of afew NFT projects were basically
just Ponzies get in early, hopeit goes up, cash out before it
(17:43):
crashes, right?
And that's kind of a meme coinmotto that has run most of the
industry up until now, at leastfinancially.
And um, where did uh that allthe other stuff go, you know?
People really didn't put a lotof thought into a lot of the
(18:04):
projects that was coming outbecause, like, for example, my
hope for smart contracts was forit to be a model for independent
musicians to form teams aroundthemselves and have the payments
(18:29):
distributed evenly or fairly,right, based on their agreement.
So normally people hireexpensive lawyers to do that for
them, and then the uh the courtskeep things in check.
But for you know, a random indiemusician just trying to to get
(18:51):
by that like something like aworking smart contract where you
can distribute, say, recordsales between yourself, your
manager, your agent, uh, the guythat carries your gear around,
you know, those sorts of thingslike can be very, very helpful.
(19:11):
Because even in normalsituations, I've seen a lot of
bands just fall apart becausethey get uh into arguments about
what they're owed.
And sometimes it's intentional,there are you know bad people
out there, but a lot of timesit's due to miscommunication.
Maybe they didn't write it down,maybe they did not do proper
(19:34):
accounting, and that sort ofwork is not zero, right?
Like administrative work isstill work, and between like a
musician trying to practicejuggling their career and having
to do that all at the same timeis not that easy.
(19:57):
So, smart contracts weresupposed to make it easy.
For those sorts of things tooccur.
But again, you have to have thebuy-in, right?
Everyone needs to have a wallet.
They need to agree that this isthe agreement.
This is where the sales aregoing to go in.
This is how the revenue issplit.
(20:17):
And uh verify not trust, right?
Like you just get a receipt atthe end of the process, and it
should be prettystraightforward.
But it's not straightforwardwhen you have all these things
that you have to do.
But in theory, it's stillbetter, right?
(20:38):
In theory, this is still betterthan what people were doing
before.
So I do think like we need tostart doubling down on these
ideas and sort of remind peoplewhy this technology exists to
begin with.
Because if you look at itwithout all the hype and the
(20:58):
scams and all that stuff, it'sactually a pretty cool
technology that can do veryuseful things.
If only we would do it.
(21:53):
So we need people working onthis stuff to have a more
holistic view because this is asort of thing, like a complex
product like cryptocurrenciesand the blockchain.
It needs all these parts workingin tandem and they have to be
built in parallel.
And that's hasn't reallyhappened yet.
(22:17):
So the folks that had theresources to do this sort of
thing are often in bigcorporations where they're not
really incentivized, see, likeincentives, right?
They're not really incentivizedto see this thing work because
it's actually a threat to thecurrent way of things.
(22:37):
A lot of people like makingdecisions behind closed doors,
they're totally fine with that.
That's part of the reason why,even though uh even Bjork was
experimenting with uh crypto fora while, um, the music industry
as a whole did not adopt itbecause there are people out
(22:58):
there that don't want peopleknowing what they're actually
doing.
So it goes back to the verifynot trusting.
And and so getting gettingregular people to like go
through all these hoops and trythis new thing out, especially
when there's so muchuncertainty, is gonna be very,
(23:18):
very difficult.
It's not only asking for them totake a chance, but it's also
asking for a lot of work, right?
Setting up and maintaining awallet for yourself is still
fairly difficult.
And the practice of likesafeguarding your keys and other
(23:38):
sorts of things, especially withsome of the hardware wallets
having issues, let's say, um,it's a hard sell.
But what we can do, if you'restill here and even listening to
this, you're probably into deep,just like me, and are wondering
what can we do to save thismarket because oh my god, you
(24:05):
know, I believe in crypto, but Ijust don't know what to do next.
But really, though, the onlything we can do is like set an
example and doing it the rightway.
And if we can get these sorts ofmodels working, even on a small
scale, someone will eventuallynotice.
(24:26):
But to get there, we have to themarkets need to become a little
quieter, and that's where we'rekind of moving towards right
now.
So, not easy during markets likethese, but I would like to
encourage people to try to stayoptimistic.
(24:48):
If you're a builder, keep onbuilding, if you're part of the
community, keep on talking.
Because yeah, now might actuallybe the best time to start asking
these questions, especially asuh people start leaving.
They had been leaving for awhile.
(25:09):
But at the same time, whenpeople leave, new people do come
in at the same time.
People are always looking forsomething new.
And when you look outside in theeconomy as a whole, uh there's
not much to look at right now,huh?
At least nothing pleasant.
So yeah, so that's really thewhere the source of hope comes
(25:31):
from.
Why I'm still here.
And I do I hope that there arestill people around who share
the same visions, you know.
Okay, well, that's it.
And uh thanks for hearing me outand see you in the next one.
Take care.
Hello everyone, this is Ryan from Teya Cafe.
So right now the markets incrypto ain't doing so well, if
you have noticed.
Uh but is it really a surprise,really?
Right?
I'm there's no one else moredeep in this industry than me.
(00:25):
And believe me, I'm not toohappy about the price right now
either.
But at the same time, I have tobe honest, I am not surprised.
Even uh up until like six monthsago, I was saying, like, yeah,
Tezos might go to a quarter.
It was like a dollar at thetime, and uh markets were
(00:47):
already doing kind of badalready, so you know, people
didn't really want to hear that,I'm assuming.
But it could go that low.
Um, and I'm prepared for it, butit still hurts, right?
And part of the reason why isthat the market is currently
(01:09):
correcting itself, and it doesneed to hit a bottom before we
have any chance of it going backup.
Because if you look at FTX,especially, right?
That was the most egregiousexample.
But there are still companiesout there basically running
sponsies, scam, meme coins, rugpulls, you know, all those
(01:32):
things.
They're still going on, it'sbecoming less profitable because
people are going broke, but thatreally has dominated the
headlines of when people talkabout uh crypto these days, and
it's not really her uh helpingour reputation, so to speak,
right?
(01:53):
So um, so yeah, when as if aswith any other bubble, and this
has happened in previous cryptocycles as well.
I saw something similar happenduring 2016-2018, where people
caught the ICO bug, and they didtalk about NFTs a bit, crypto
(02:16):
punks, crypto kiddies, thosesorts of projects.
Back then they were very, verynovel and interesting.
But as with all hype cycles,they take it too far, it sort of
hits a limit, and then thebubble pops and it goes back
down, right?
But it's not necessarily a badthing because when the markets
(02:37):
are doing poor, people oftenstart to reflect on, you know,
what what are we doing here?
Like, what's the whole point ofthis to begin with, right?
You do you sort of ask yourselfthose deeper questions about
what um the movement wassupposed to be.
(02:58):
So I feel like a lot of peoplebasically just kind of forgot
about it during the hype cyclebecause it was just like money
flying everywhere, right?
Especially in like 2021 wheneverything was shooting up.
Uh, the crypto industry was likeuh even Wall Street was like
nervous because there it wasgrowing so fast that you know it
(03:20):
could have been a big threat tothem.
But as you know how that turnedout, uh it kind of culminated
with FTX because there's a lotof um fraud and you know, just
like not good things going on.
So now's a chance for people torevisit why crypto was invented
(03:45):
to begin with, and this is gonnaaccompany a post that I made uh
in writing.
So I'm just kind of repeatingand expounding on some of the
things that are you can eitherchoose to read or listen to this
thing.
So either way, you know.
Okay, so um there's I listed, Iwas looking it up for a little
(04:09):
while, but I listed five firstprinciples that I think are
basically essential for anyonewho claims to understand crypto
and actually believe it in, notthe grift version that the uh
exchanges and the banks and WallStreet has been pushing on
(04:30):
people.
They just want to milk yourmoney and uh you know at your
expense, right?
They just want to make a littlebit of money at your expense,
and that's why they're there.
They don't really care aboutthese things.
So um I would be very wary ofanyone talking about this if
they're not actually doing it inpractice, right?
(04:54):
So I'll start with the first onethen.
So the first one is no debt.
So if you imagine Satoshi tryingto build a new financial system,
you gotta think about like whyand when, right?
He started working on Bitcoinright after the 2008 financial
(05:19):
crisis, and I don't think it's acoincidence that there was that
parallel, because Bitcoin reallyis sort of a statement against
what the banks were doing,especially at the time.
And one interesting thing thatdoesn't get talked about in
(05:40):
crypto, it doesn't get talkedabout enough, because it's maybe
it's so obvious that uh peopledon't bother mentioning it, but
the idea that you cannot havenegative balances in crypto
wallets is kind of a big deal.
You know, this is basicallySatoshi trying to create a
(06:03):
debtless society, and I thinkpeople often overlook how
radical that notion really was.
Because I mean, what will you dowith a negative balance on a
crypto wallet where you youliterally can't like if you
don't if it's not in positive,uh you can't uh do a
(06:25):
transaction, it will not allowit.
It's the system literally willnot allow it.
Now, there's plenty of peoplewho probably went broke betting
on crypto, but the money fromthat stuff doesn't come from
crypto itself, they're doing itthrough some other means,
through a bank or a loan or aloan shark or whatever sketchy
(06:48):
source they found, you know, tobasically fuel their gambling
addiction.
But if it's used in the way itwas intended, you should have no
debt in crypto.
So you can earn money by doingsales or maybe doing a task, but
(07:08):
you can't borrow money againstsome other external entity with
your wallet, right?
So, yeah, I just wanted to kindof remind people of that because
I do think it's a big part ofwhy this thing was created to
begin with, and it might givepeople a place to start to start
(07:30):
thinking about like what to donext.
Because part of the reason whythe industry is struggling so
much is because they made toomany ties with Wall Street and
the banks, especially theexchanges, right?
When you have a wallet on anexchange, uh that's you're not
really it's not really yours,right?
(07:52):
You're you're basically trustingthem to hold your money for you
in a traditional way, and thatkind of defeats the purpose.
So it's a lot of the uh cryptothings that happen over the last
few years is really like awatered-down version that's not
really uh part of like what wasmeant to happen.
(08:18):
So that's a good segue into thenext mantra, and these are
things people used to say butdon't say anymore.
That's kind of a that's kind ofbasically what what I'm doing
right now.
So they used to say, not yourkeys, not your coin.
Bitcoin people were actuallyvery famous for saying that
(08:40):
phrase because they reallyencouraged people to do
self-custody, which is to holdyour own wallet and store it in
uh a private key, right?
Like a private wallet.
Um there's a reason why that gotless popular, which is because
you have to eventually convertthe Bitcoin back to dollars for
(09:05):
it to be any use, right?
But at the same time, a lot ofthe uh most useful things about
crypto doesn't really comeunless you're using a real
wallet.
So uh how I use my wallet is agood example because I'm
(09:25):
involved with arts and um I tryto use my wallet for quote
forward-facing things.
I don't have my life savings onthere, of course, right?
Nobody nobody carries aroundtheir life savings in the
wallet, right?
But they do use it to like Ihave my ID card in my wallet, I
(09:45):
have some cash, a little bit ofcash to spend.
I have um credit cards, uhright.
That's that's so that's thefunction the wallet was supposed
to serve, but online, and it wasactually right supposed to like
people were supposed to be ableto identify you based on your
(10:07):
wallet, based on what's insideof the wallet, right?
Uh people but old habits diehard, and uh most people don't
really use it like that.
They kind of use it as thisdisposable thing, almost like
like uh email, right?
Or you can just sign up for afree one, use it for something
(10:30):
and just throw it awayafterwards.
It's become very disposable.
But that again, that was not theintention.
People should be using walletaddresses to build up history,
credibility, right?
Otherwise, none of this is gonnareally work.
So this also segues into thenext one, which is your wallet,
(10:54):
your identity.
So originally the idea of cryptowallets was that when they were
feeling more ambitious, theywanted people to replace things
like email or other digital IDsystems with a crypto wallet
because it's more secure, it hasa lot more information, uh the
(11:18):
transactions are transparent,right?
It was supposed to like replacelogins for websites, for
example.
And some places are still doingthat, but interestingly enough,
the only places that really dothat right now are NFTs.
You cannot log in to mostwebsites with a crypto wallet
(11:44):
unless it has to do somethingwith NFTs.
Um there's DeFi, but uh, youknow, even that that the use
cases are very limited right nowbecause most people are still
more comfortable using regularfiat money.
(12:05):
So, but that's something a bigproject that crypto is has yet
to fulfill because one of thebiggest obstacles for mass
adoption is getting people tosign up for a wallet and take it
seriously, which is very hardbecause most of the time their
first uh interactions with thesesorts of things is through
(12:27):
exchanges.
And if you have a wallet on anexchange, you're not really in
control of it, right?
It's in the agreement.
So until people start taking theidea of their wallet seriously
and are willing to attach theiridentity to it, it's gonna be a
very hard uphill battle, butit's something we just can't
(12:49):
avoid if you wanna uh for thisto like get get places.
Okay, the other part is actuallythese are all sigwing very
nicely into each other.
Uh verify not trust.
So there's been a lot ofprojects out there, and I won't
(13:10):
name names Solana, but uhthey're not really blockchains,
you know, and um they claim tobe, but when you look at how
just stuff works, uh it's justreally not true.
And the fact that uh Solanaexperienced several shutdowns
(13:32):
and there was like some verysketchy things going on with the
team and the way they uh quoterebooted things, right?
Um yeah, and and uh it's justlike there's it's there's been a
disappointing trend towards alot of crypto projects really
(13:58):
kind of abandoning the idea ofpermissionless networks because
yeah, I mean the short story isthat they just basically sold
out.
There are there are people withfiat money willing to give them
a lot of money just to not dothe thing that they were
(14:20):
supposed to do, right?
Ethereum's kind of a good caseof that because uh one, they
don't have on-chain governance,so when they make decisions, you
don't know when or where that'shappening, they're not
transparent about it in thatway.
But I've heard people just flatout say we have to trust
(14:42):
Vitalik.
Look at him, he's such a nerd,he doesn't have ulterior
motives, you know.
And that might have been truelike some years ago.
Like I was in the Ethereum ICO,so I remember Vitalik from back
then versus now.
He is not the same personanymore.
(15:03):
And he used to be more hands-on,he used to be builder, he used
to code things directly.
And you know, uh when I decidedto get in, I was like, yeah,
that's the kind of nerd I want,you know.
I want someone who cares aboutthe tech.
And at the time it was true, butnow um it's a very different
(15:24):
story.
So so yeah, so uh when I hearhim talk these days, he just
kind of throws off this wordsolid that means doesn't mean
much, and he makes a lot ofpromises that he probably knows
not is not gonna happen, youknow.
It's probably not gonna happen.
Are they gonna get on-chaingovernance?
(15:46):
He's opposed it pretty muchthroughout his whole career, so
why would it change now?
All right, so there's all thesethings going back in the
background, and uh they're justbeing basically trust me, bro.
You know, it's a trust me bromodel.
If they're trustworthy, maybe itcan work, but um the whole point
(16:08):
of crypto is that you shouldn'thave to have that trust.
Everything should be transparentas is, and with the blockchain,
that should be very easy.
The technology to do it isalready there.
It really is a uh cultureproblem, it really is a people
problem.
So that's something that theindustry is going to have to
(16:30):
contend with as well.
Okay, so for the last one, uhincentives are everything.
And um the last couple years,there's a few models out there
that people have tried out.
The most interesting part ofcrypto is actually NFPs, even
(16:56):
now, because you can arguewhether or not art is a real
product per se, but it issomething.
It is a product, it is somethingby people buy and sell, and and
they did create platforms andmodels, auction systems, like
(17:16):
those things are not easy tobuild, you know.
But they they did.
So it was supposed to be thisbig like experiment in trying
out different incentives, butunfortunately, the vast majority
of crypto projects outside of afew NFT projects were basically
just Ponzies get in early, hopeit goes up, cash out before it
(17:43):
crashes, right?
And that's kind of a meme coinmotto that has run most of the
industry up until now, at leastfinancially.
And um, where did uh that allthe other stuff go, you know?
People really didn't put a lotof thought into a lot of the
(18:04):
projects that was coming outbecause, like, for example, my
hope for smart contracts was forit to be a model for independent
musicians to form teams aroundthemselves and have the payments
(18:29):
distributed evenly or fairly,right, based on their agreement.
So normally people hireexpensive lawyers to do that for
them, and then the uh the courtskeep things in check.
But for you know, a random indiemusician just trying to to get
(18:51):
by that like something like aworking smart contract where you
can distribute, say, recordsales between yourself, your
manager, your agent, uh, the guythat carries your gear around,
you know, those sorts of thingslike can be very, very helpful.
(19:11):
Because even in normalsituations, I've seen a lot of
bands just fall apart becausethey get uh into arguments about
what they're owed.
And sometimes it's intentional,there are you know bad people
out there, but a lot of timesit's due to miscommunication.
Maybe they didn't write it down,maybe they did not do proper
(19:34):
accounting, and that sort ofwork is not zero, right?
Like administrative work isstill work, and between like a
musician trying to practicejuggling their career and having
to do that all at the same timeis not that easy.
(19:57):
So, smart contracts weresupposed to make it easy.
For those sorts of things tooccur.
But again, you have to have thebuy-in, right?
Everyone needs to have a wallet.
They need to agree that this isthe agreement.
This is where the sales aregoing to go in.
This is how the revenue issplit.
(20:17):
And uh verify not trust, right?
Like you just get a receipt atthe end of the process, and it
should be prettystraightforward.
But it's not straightforwardwhen you have all these things
that you have to do.
But in theory, it's stillbetter, right?
(20:38):
In theory, this is still betterthan what people were doing
before.
So I do think like we need tostart doubling down on these
ideas and sort of remind peoplewhy this technology exists to
begin with.
Because if you look at itwithout all the hype and the
(20:58):
scams and all that stuff, it'sactually a pretty cool
technology that can do veryuseful things.
If only we would do it.
(21:53):
So we need people working onthis stuff to have a more
holistic view because this is asort of thing, like a complex
product like cryptocurrenciesand the blockchain.
It needs all these parts workingin tandem and they have to be
built in parallel.
And that's hasn't reallyhappened yet.
(22:17):
So the folks that had theresources to do this sort of
thing are often in bigcorporations where they're not
really incentivized, see, likeincentives, right?
They're not really incentivizedto see this thing work because
it's actually a threat to thecurrent way of things.
(22:37):
A lot of people like makingdecisions behind closed doors,
they're totally fine with that.
That's part of the reason why,even though uh even Bjork was
experimenting with uh crypto fora while, um, the music industry
as a whole did not adopt itbecause there are people out
(22:58):
there that don't want peopleknowing what they're actually
doing.
So it goes back to the verifynot trusting.
And and so getting gettingregular people to like go
through all these hoops and trythis new thing out, especially
when there's so muchuncertainty, is gonna be very,
(23:18):
very difficult.
It's not only asking for them totake a chance, but it's also
asking for a lot of work, right?
Setting up and maintaining awallet for yourself is still
fairly difficult.
And the practice of likesafeguarding your keys and other
(23:38):
sorts of things, especially withsome of the hardware wallets
having issues, let's say, um,it's a hard sell.
But what we can do, if you'restill here and even listening to
this, you're probably into deep,just like me, and are wondering
what can we do to save thismarket because oh my god, you
(24:05):
know, I believe in crypto, but Ijust don't know what to do next.
But really, though, the onlything we can do is like set an
example and doing it the rightway.
And if we can get these sorts ofmodels working, even on a small
scale, someone will eventuallynotice.
(24:26):
But to get there, we have to themarkets need to become a little
quieter, and that's where we'rekind of moving towards right
now.
So, not easy during markets likethese, but I would like to
encourage people to try to stayoptimistic.
(24:48):
If you're a builder, keep onbuilding, if you're part of the
community, keep on talking.
Because yeah, now might actuallybe the best time to start asking
these questions, especially asuh people start leaving.
They had been leaving for awhile.
(25:09):
But at the same time, whenpeople leave, new people do come
in at the same time.
People are always looking forsomething new.
And when you look outside in theeconomy as a whole, uh there's
not much to look at right now,huh?
At least nothing pleasant.
So yeah, so that's really thewhere the source of hope comes
(25:31):
from.
Why I'm still here.
And I do I hope that there arestill people around who share
the same visions, you know.
Okay, well, that's it.
And uh thanks for hearing me outand see you in the next one.
Take care.
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