Ep 130: 1) The Bitcoin Halving with Robby Greenfield 2) Feelings check-in about "growth"

[00:00] Whenever we talk about Bitcoin, I always feel like a Republican. [00:04] You're cosplaying as a Republican? Totally. [00:07] Welcome to the Feelings Check-In, a feelings first look at the news of the week. Takes no one asked for on topics everyone's talking about. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No, no. No. [00:25] Just boy stuff. [00:26] That's unfair to our guest, Robbie Greenfield, who was... [00:30] I don't know his politics, but I don't know. There's something about it that's so... [00:35] Red pill. [00:35] individualistic yeah and red pillish that I'm like [00:39] That's just the feeling that I get. Robbie was great. He, what we talked about today on the pod was the Bitcoin halving, but also just general... [00:49] financial movements, the market, what is happening, the global financial market, a lot of alpha, a lot of learnings. I really enjoyed the conversation. And so I am so thankful to him and his time and just a really generous guy who's talking about really complex things in a way that I felt like I was totally tracking, which is all we ever want from this podcast. So really delivered. So we, yeah, we spend the first half of this podcast talking about that. [01:19] sometimes talking about [01:21] feelings are feelings. So stick around. Thanks for listening. [01:25] Hey, Natasha. So a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help you along

[01:55] On today's show, we have Robbie Greenfield, who is the co-founder of Emoja Labs, the world's first smart money protocol. [02:25] later on in the show. Emojo Labs is backed by Coinbase Ventures, Orange DAO, and others. Ravi is a former consensus guy, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, totally stacked portfolio of work that's really at this intersection of social impact and technology. And so we're so excited to have you on the show. Ravi, welcome. [02:43] I appreciate y'all doing an amazing job. Looking forward to the conversation. Great. We're excited to have you for many reasons. One of the reasons being that there's a big moment happening in Bitcoin that I feel I need to understand. And so you're gonna be here breaking it down for us. So you're a money markets guy. We're gonna be talking about the Bitcoin halving today. Let's start with the basics. [03:07] having [03:08] What is it? Am I saying it right? [03:10] Give us the 101. Yeah. Yeah. Having is always one of those tricky words to pronounce for sure. And yes, you're absolutely saying it right. And [03:19] The TLDR is that the rate at which Bitcoin is introduced into the market is going to halve. And that's why

[03:26] It's called The Having, more specifically... [03:29] the block rewards or the rewards that, you know, computers, otherwise called miners, get for mining Bitcoin, I believe goes from around six or so Bitcoin to around three or so Bitcoin per block. And so this obviously, in market terms, is going to reduce supply, obviously increase demand as people [03:47] all believe around this time, you know, Bitcoin should substantially go up. Hopefully that does happen, though I feel like in crypto you never know. And it's considered one of the two catalytic events within the first two quarters of this year. [04:01] Obviously, the second one, which doesn't have as much positive sentiment, is the potential [04:06] ETF approval. [04:07] That sentiment has become more negative given the SEC investigating the Ethereum Foundation and thinking that Ether might be a security, at least in their eyes. So those are kind of the two big events that a lot of people have been looking for. [04:19] forward to. [04:19] Okay, I want to get into the ETH ETF in a few, but I want to talk a little bit more about the halving. So my understanding is that historically there have been some pretty crazy price movements that coincide with the halving. So looked up some numbers here. 2012, 8,858% increase in price. 2016, a 294% increase in price. 2020, 540% increase in price. [04:43] From my research, the haters are saying that it's priced in this time and that the halving is a diminishing return because of a saturated market. What's your take on that? I would say that it likely will go up in price. How much? I'm not sure. And certainly anything that I say is not financial advice. My own.

[05:02] projection is probably around 80 to 90,000 immediately after. I think that [05:09] with the changing regulatory environment and also the changing interest rate environment from a macroeconomic level is going to have a lot more of effect [05:17] this halving than previous halvings, right? So if we see that the U.S. Federal Reserve actually decreases the interest rate [05:26] and thus decreasing inflation overall. [05:29] then and that happens in tangent with the halving and also the ETF gets approved, right? If those stars align, then I could see Bitcoin being [05:38] over 100,000, like we've seen a lot of banks predicting in previous years. But if inflation rates go the opposite way, then I see that being a lot more tame growth. [05:48] I don't think that it's priced in because... [05:50] That would be to say that we haven't reached this height before. And this all-time high this year isn't much higher than [05:57] than what it was before this long bear market that we've just experienced over the last one and a half, two years. And so I do think, and also, I mean, you see [06:06] like BlackRock, JP Morgan, MicroStrategy, buying like massive amounts of Bitcoin and of ETH. [06:13] and so i i do think that that's a little fud on behalf of those making those predictions because they're not looking at the inflows [06:20] that the BTC ETF has created alone. [06:23] Okay, great. So you're saying to the moon, buy Bitcoin. [06:31] I certainly would have a little exposure, you know, a little exposure.

[06:36] You know, I don't what I will say is this, I don't see [06:40] Yeah, because I know that there's a lot of like talk show hosts in traditional finance that are like, oh, Bitcoin's going to crash. And they've been saying that over and over again. [06:47] I don't think that's going to happen. The reason is because outside of these financial entities, [06:52] Governments are also stockpiling Bitcoin, right? Phoenix Group, for example. Phoenix Group is the second largest Bitcoin miner in the world. And Phoenix Group is [07:00] their majority shareholder is the United Arab Emirates. [07:03] Right. So governments are vested in Bitcoin, particularly as you see fiat currencies go through [07:10] mass inflation which is guided by the US dollar. [07:14] And there aren't too many commodities that are sought after and also very rare other than gold. And Bitcoin's really reaching that status, I think, from a political level in terms of how governments look at it. [07:27] but then also from a financial level in terms of how banks look at it. [07:29] You see people sometimes on Twitter talk about how governments or big traditional financial institutions [07:36] buying and hoarding Bitcoin being a negative thing because it's antithetical to the decentralized finance movement. Curious where you stand on that debate. [07:47] Yeah, I think that crypto at large has been pretty plutocratic, right? It's been pretty wealth concentrated in terms of who owns the tokens, you know, whether it be Bitcoin, whether it be any token, really. As to whether I think it like violates the original ethos of decentralization, I think it does in most cases, but because Bitcoin is not necessarily used as governance.

[08:11] I don't think it does as much. [08:14] I mean, what we're starting to see in the Bitcoin space is like BitVM, right? So you're starting to see L2s on Bitcoin and the ability to create solidity-based applications on top of Bitcoin. And I think that with the underlying network that Bitcoin is, you still can find grace in things actually being decentralized and... [08:32] you know, it being a really good reference point for what's happened and what hasn't. Though, I mean, [08:37] I mean, obviously, banks and governments are always going to try to manipulate markets like that. That just won't go away. I think crypto thought that they were kind of special in that, but we're certainly not. And a perfect example is that, like, you know, they know the gold market is manipulated. [08:51] So like you would think gold, very much like Bitcoin, is a finite amount of it. Right. And people are mining it all the time. You would think that it would [08:59] go up, right? That's, you know, base economics is, you know, it's gonna go up forever, right? But it hasn't done that. And the reason why it hasn't done that is because banks will introduce what's called paper gold. [09:08] So they'll introduce effectively fake gold [09:11] into the market to control the price. Now, doing that with Bitcoin is a lot more difficult because [09:17] Everything is verifiable. [09:18] But that is to say that there are other markets that have been manipulated, and Bitcoin, I don't think, will be any different in terms of these institutions trying to do that as well. And so, I mean, to answer your question, I think yes in terms of wealth concentration, but no in terms of the applications that can be built on it. [09:33] Super interesting. Okay. I want to ask you kind of a dumb question. [09:36] about inflation and sort of inflationary mechanisms. So just to get a base understanding here. So if

[09:44] Money inflating is bad. [09:45] Why is all money inflation dampened? [09:49] Yes, there are a lot of reasons for why inflation would be dampened. I mean, one thing that is very interesting about the power of the Federal Reserve is that any time they increase the interest rates, [10:00] you kind of get to understand how all investors are very lazy in terms of how they want to get money. Everybody wants the least risky, highest yield opportunity. You begin to realize how true that is [10:13] when we went to like 5%, 6% APY on US treasuries, right? [10:17] Literally everyone abandoned every investment they were in, including crypto, and went toward that. [10:23] And that's why you see these depressions in market prices [10:26] particularly in crypto. But the thing is, is that the cost of that is [10:30] the little cost of everything else. And so you've seen that obviously in a lot of emerging markets where, you know, a lot of their economies are tied to the U.S. dollar because a lot of their debt is in the U.S. dollar, their corporate debt, their retail debt. But then also in the United States, as you all probably know, I mean, everything is so much more expensive than it was for COVID. Like groceries are super expensive. I don't know about you all, but in Atlanta, where I'm from, you see a lot more homelessness than you ever would. Like, I mean, this is not a place where [11:00] And so that's the cost of raising inflation to [11:03] constrain money supply and people to invest back into the government. [11:07] I think that now they've realized it's gone too far and the dollar is starting to lose its hegemony over the world. [11:14] right? Like you have BRICS, the alliance between Brazil, Russia, China, India, and a lot of other countries that are like, why are we using? It's just like one protocol saying, why are we using this other governance token in our protocol? Like we don't need to do that. And I think that

[11:29] the convergence of a lot of countries realizing that they don't need to be dollar dependent because they have their own natural resources. [11:35] And then also this [11:37] digital asset called Bitcoin becoming more and more prevalent in international markets is quickening the pace of de-dollarization. And so, you know, I think that it's still very much related now. [11:48] But I do think that you could have a scenario in which inflation actually doesn't go down, right? So the interest rates remain high. [11:55] But Bitcoin continues to go up. [11:58] And now you're seeing the crypto markets and traditional finance become disjointed. [12:02] I and I think that in that scenario, I don't know what would cause that scenario maybe a [12:07] world government saying that they have a whole bunch of Bitcoin could cause that scenario, particularly one that's not like within the alliance spectrum of the United States. But if that were to happen, then I could see Bitcoin going up a lot because now its belief system is completely separate in value than the US dollar. But that's how I interpret the relationship with interest rates and. [12:25] kind of how they're important in this context. [12:27] When Balaji was doing his whole Bitcoin to 1 million thing last year, I think it was, and remember he was doing all the tweeting that was like, [12:36] "Bitcoin's gonna go to a million dollars." And basically it was like the decline of the US dollar and the rise of Bitcoin. What I was struck by in that moment when he was trying to rally everyone around this $1 million Bitcoin thing and like that happening in a really short amount of time, what I was really struck by was [12:51] oh, that's going to be really destructive, actually. That would mean really dire circumstances for the US dollar, which, as you're saying, is in many ways a global reserve currency. And so the impact would not just be felt in the United States, it'd be felt everywhere. And that felt kind of like a scary thing that I don't know that we should be like cheering on. How do you feel about that?

[13:15] No, I would agree. I mean, particularly selfishly as an American, though I think that that part is not as important. But I would agree. I mean... [13:28] when the dollar inflates, the world feels it. And what's really crazy is that so [13:35] Prior to doing a Moje, I obviously was head of social impact consensus. You begin to understand how crucial the dollar is in other countries when you start to talk to their lenders and their credit fintechs and stuff like that, and you realize, [13:51] All their credit fintechs and all their lenders, their treasuries in a separate country is in U.S. dollars. [13:58] Right? I mean, think about that. That's kind of crazy to think that someone who gives you a loan [14:04] of a entity that is like based in Kenya or based in Nigeria, that their treasury is in a different currency than their country's currency. [14:12] I mean, it really just shows you how much power and how much reach the US dollar has. [14:16] And there are many, many, many countries like that. [14:18] and a lot of [14:20] a lot of those currencies aren't nearly as stable, or there's been some level of economic arbitrage over the past 100 years that don't allow them to be stable, or they still have colonial ties. [14:31] In that scenario, you're talking about [14:35] an outright recession in the United States, which I think we've already been. And I think we've redefined recession and keep on pushing it back. But a depression in other areas, for sure. Yeah. So it's definitely not something to look forward to. Okay. So yesterday, the U.S. government moved 30 Bitcoin, 2.[redacted address] hack.

[14:54] If they dump this, [14:56] That's bad, right? [14:58] Yeah, I think it would be bad in terms of [15:03] short term, like within a month, but I don't think it's going to create, because of the inflows for the ETFs, [15:10] And because of the entry of a lot of institutions and also the institutionalization of Bitcoin and ETH, [15:15] not just in US financial markets, but also abroad. So you're starting to see like the UK, I think was introducing some ETH. [15:22] variant security as well. [15:25] that influx shocks like that are going to quickly be absorbed. Institutions are probably going to get it. Yeah, yeah. They're probably just going to buy it up. I wouldn't be surprised if like BlackRock or some of the asset managers are already in talks with the U.S. government. Can we get a discount price on this? Just the sidebar. Drug money. Yeah. [15:43] I wish everyone got the drug money discount on Bitcoin. [15:47] Yeah. [15:51] Got it. [15:55] that you provided a quote for that was called What the Bitcoin Halving Means for the Network's Energy Consumption Concerns. Energy consumption and Bitcoin obviously being a huge talking point for people who hate crypto. And so, yeah, curious, like, what's the verdict on what the halving impact will be on energy? Yeah. [16:14] This is not to say that we shouldn't consume energy in every practice as responsibly as possible. But yeah, you all do remember that period where everybody was really hard on proof of work layers in general. And I'm like, guys, but what about planes or farms with a million cows or, you know, these other things from a percentage wide are causing a lot more global warming than I think Bitcoin is creating. But yeah, all the people who are who are making those claims like tweeting from their phone.

[16:44] What do you think it takes to make your phone? No, it's on these phones. Yeah, yeah. It kills me sometimes. But, you know, I would say that mining won't stop. [16:54] It will become increasingly unprofitable though. And so [16:58] Actually, I think that a lot of miners that are mass scale are going to have to use renewable energy sources. It's not going to make sense to use anything else. And so actually, I think you're going to see the acceleration of [17:09] of adoption of those technologies by some of the largest firms. A lot of the [17:13] miners in bitcoin are already public companies and so i think in that way it's good [17:17] But then also it's going to force the Bitcoin ecosystem to [17:21] branch out of its fundamentals into creating L2s on top of it so that you can build. Because [17:27] You can only distribute so much value of a concentrated and limited token supply. [17:33] without [17:34] seeking other avenues of creating revenue and creating value. [17:37] And it will be one of the things in the long term that increases the cost of Bitcoin for sure. Quick question on that. So you're saying that Bitcoin mining will become less profitable as [17:50] with this having and then with future havings [17:54] Does that mean that there will be a concentration then of that work to fewer people? [18:01] bigger miners and [18:03] with that result, does that mean it's less decentralized? [18:07] In some terms, yes. Yes. Yes to your first question in terms of there will be a concentration in terms of miners that actually can be in the mining market.

[18:16] I mean, effectively, if you can't [18:18] afford a solar farm or some renewable energy source that can lower your costs, [18:23] It just doesn't make sense for you to mine Bitcoin. And then to your point, you know, that's going to increase wealth concentration as to who holds Bitcoin, which is already pretty concentrated as it is. [18:32] Now, I think the biggest issue will become a lot of the L2s, a lot of the layer two networks that are building on top of Bitcoin and trying to create application ecosystems, a lot of them... [18:43] are [18:43] trying to unlock the power of staking bitcoin. [18:46] If, when, because it's already happening. So when you have that, and you also have a lot of wealth concentration as to who owns Bitcoin, then you are giving those entities undue influence on all of those L2s. [18:57] Right. And you get back into the same plutocratic problem that you see in the EVM space where it's like, you know, VCs pretty much make governance decisions on most of the multibillion dollar. [19:09] protocols and that is absolutely a threat to decentralization. [19:13] And it's also one reason why I think from a government's perspective, we have to stop being lazy [19:18] And... [19:19] We need to change the paradigm as to how governance is facilitated. It can't just be one token, one vote. [19:24] It has to be something different. It should be based off of participation in my honest opinion. [19:28] And that could help disintermediate that a lot. [19:30] But this is something I've even had a conversation with Vitalik a few years ago about this. Yeah, it's an issue. It can't just be you have the most money. You get to determine what happens. [19:41] Isn't there like technical risks though as well, like the 51% attack where if 51% of the network has control and is able to determine the outcome of a block, it could change.

[19:55] the [19:56] I'm completely butchering what I think a 50% attack is. My understanding is that if 51% of people control the thing, they can change the thing. [20:07] Yes. And [20:08] So, [20:08] Doesn't that become a real risk with Bitcoin having and concentration of miners? [20:14] Yes, it does. Economic exploits of networks are always theoretical. When it comes to like 51% of tax, it's like, well, it's going to be too expensive. It's like, well, [20:24] it's too expensive for you or me. It's not too expensive for a government that prints money. They haven't necessarily decided to use their resources in that way and I think that also [20:37] It's likely unlikely to [20:39] only because [20:41] If Bitcoin were to become so much important of a resource and a network, then countries would be battling for that. [20:47] And it would be very difficult for any single country given [20:51] like multinational competition for that to occur, especially with a declining dollar. And so likely, I think it will even out in terms of, you know, which corporations or, you know, companies, you know, hold the most Bitcoin in aggregate. But yes, that is where things are going. And that's true of any highly valuable commodity. [21:10] Gold is the same thing. Okay, I want to pivot to Ethereum here. So you contributed to an article calling ETH at 10. You said ETH hasn't seen the institutional energy that Bitcoin has. What are your thoughts on ETH? What do you think about the impending ETH ETFs? Would love to know what you're thinking. I'm so annoyed with SEC.

[21:31] You heard it here first. Yeah, it's just because the thing is that, one, I understand their sentiment with certain [21:40] happen in crypto. There are still a lot of scammers. It's not representative of the industry, but we all know that that is a thing. [21:46] Now, in the EVM context specific with ETH, I mean, yes, it hasn't gone through the institutional rounds that Bitcoin has. [21:53] I don't believe the ether. [21:55] as a security. I think that's going to be an impossible argument to make, given that it is the most adopted system. [22:01] framework as a chain [22:04] but also one of the most adopted [22:05] chains in terms of use cases by far. ETH has played a significant role in terms of the security of the network. You know, that is pretty damn based in utility. So I think that that... [22:18] I think honestly, the SEC is just trying to [22:21] decrease the pace of that institutionalization by lobbying these type of complaints so that it may not get approved this next time. [22:28] may get approved next year. They can only do that so many times because what you're starting to see is you're starting to see other international financial markets [22:35] introduce their own securities based off of ETH, [22:37] Because the U.S. is just... [22:39] you know, starting to not be taken seriously when it comes to crypto. In the long run, is that the US is going to have less and less control or influence over the overall market in terms of how we set interest rates, in terms of which assets we adopt or institutionalize into ETFs. That will be externalized to the UKs, the Dubais, [22:57] the Singapore's, et cetera. [22:58] and then the world will continue on without the US. And that's why increasingly, it's a liability to be an American building anything.

[23:06] When it comes to Emoja, I cannot [23:09] represent the [23:10] our offshore foundations or [23:12] be in them at all. [23:14] because it has an American nexus. So yeah, I know it's a long, long answer, but yes. Okay. Let's talk about Emoja. Tell me, yeah, what are you building? Smart money protocol sounds juicy. I have no idea what that means. So tell us more. [23:27] Yeah, I've come to realize you need like a juicy one-liner that no one understands and then like a second one-liner. Actually, it's less. And as an engineer, I suck at both. But yes, all Smart Money Protocol means is that we create structured financial products. [23:48] very easily that anyone and everyone can use. And so the TLDR is that, as we all know, retail investors [23:55] always get, pardon my language, effed over. [23:57] Every time, in any market, it's always the case. But what people don't know is that retail investors have most of the money under management. We have 52% of global AUM, and I believe that's around 50 or so trillion dollars. [24:10] But we don't know how to use it, and asset management is very expensive, right? All of us can't afford high net worth Goldman Sachs accounts that just... [24:16] print money for us. And it's a misnomer to believe that whales or the rich are particularly financially adept. They just have a lot of money to afford asset managers that do that for them. [24:27] And so the whole point of Umoja is to automate asset management [24:32] in a single token. [24:33] It's not a vault, it's not anything crazy, [24:36] How can we create assets that automatically protect you from downside risk if the price of ETH goes down?

[24:42] or make you more yields in ways that a lot of DeFi, DGENs have been doing manually for a long time that you can do automatically. And so you do this by creating building blocks to create new assets. And we call those building blocks Synths. A Synth can be an E. [24:58] automated asset management strategy, and you can embed those within new assets. So a perfect example that I give is that [25:05] and Mojo could create a thousand Athenas. [25:07] Athena, USD, it's based off of underlying trading, right? It's a synthetic asset. [25:13] But it gives you these benefits that a lot of other stablecoins can't really do. And that's because it's not one. [25:18] And so if you can create assets like that, that optimize people's yields, protect them from risk, [25:24] You're now creating wealth creating tools that people can use passively. Because the one thing that's impossible is that we can't increase financial literacy globally for everyone. That is impossible. [25:34] The resources to do so aren't there. And also, for a lot of people who are working... [25:39] blue collar jobs, they don't have the time to do that. They don't have the time to learn about options trading, like on a computer that also costs money to have. But what they can do is they can purchase digital assets [25:51] that do a lot of those things for them and know that they're trusted. And so that's what we're enabling is wealth creation tools for anyone with limited financial literacy, but with strategies that. [26:01] some of the top hedge funds are, you know, [26:03] banks would use. [26:04] Amazing. So... [26:06] Your average customer, your average user, are they purchasing a token or what is the experience for a user on your platform?

[26:14] There's two things that you can do on Emojo right now. So we have beta out on Arbitrum. [26:18] It's about $5.4 million in notional transaction volume in the last six weeks or so. [26:23] And the first thing that you can do is you can use these strategies directly. [26:27] So you don't need to buy a token, you can just say, "I want to go 10x long on Bitcoin before the halving and not get liquidated." [26:33] And I know nothing about [26:34] options at all, right? You could do that. [26:37] And we provide you a very simple interface, looks very similar to Uniswap, where you say, "I want to go long 10 Bitcoin up until April 30th at this price." And it will track your P&L, so your profit and loss. [26:49] It'll automatically make sure that you don't get liquidated. Do a lot of the things that you just wouldn't otherwise be able to do if you weren't like a professional trader. [26:55] So that's one thing you can do. And it literally takes... [26:58] 15 seconds. You can also do that in the opposite way, where you think, "Okay, I think Bitcoin is going to go down." [27:03] I want to protect 10 times my money, or I want to pay for 10 times less to protect more money. You can do that as well. [27:11] And the second thing is you can create new assets. So this would be more for protocol developers. Say you want to create... [27:17] So S-T-Eth, as you all are aware, staked-Eth, right? So for those who aren't aware of listening, staked-Eth, [27:23] You stake ETH into a protocol called Lido, and you get STETH in return, and that gives you 3% to 4% APY. [27:30] Now, SDEth does face impermanent loss, right? So if you have your ETH locked up in this protocol and the price of ETH goes down, [27:38] and you are losing money, you can create hedged STEs. [27:42] So SDE that it, when the price of ETH goes down,

[27:45] it pays you back for what you lost and accrues the yield. And that's something that you can't do right now. Or you can create SDE that goes along. [27:52] So it's reinvesting the yield that you're making into, say, a call-off or whatever. [27:58] to give you more yield than you otherwise would. [28:00] So these are like, you know, more complex financial products that are doing things that would otherwise require manual trading for you to go from one protocol to another. That's just locked in a single asset. [28:11] And I see the vast majority of people using emoji in that way, in which they're using an asset that they don't even know emoji is associated with. [28:18] rather than using these strategies directly. [28:20] Wow, cool. The other day I tweeted that I was looking for someone to build DGen as a service. And it sounds like you guys are building DGen as a service, which is awesome. I can't wait to check it out. Robbie, thank you so much for your time and for coming on and for being so generous with your explanations and patient with us. Yeah, it was just a delight to talk to you. [28:39] No, no, you as well. Keep rocking. Y'all are killing it. I love to see it. And I appreciate you all's time as well. It's time for a more open, inclusive and transparent financial system. A system that serves nearly everyone, everywhere, all the time. That's why we love today's sponsor, Kraken. Kraken is a crypto platform that provides a super simple on-ramp to the world of crypto with the 24-7 support team. Crypto transcends physical and imaginary borders. No matter where you are, you can send funds easily and quickly to almost any part of the world. Plus, forget about waiting [29:09] and waiting lines you can send receive and trade crypto anywhere near instantly see what crypto can be at kraken.com backslash boys club non-investment advice crypto trading involves risk of loss transfers to a third party are not available on kraken cryptocurrency services are provided to us and us territory customers by payward ventures inc pvi dba kraken view pvi's disclosures at kraken.com backslash legal backslash disclosures the feelings check-in man it's been a while since we've done

[29:39] Feelings. Feelings are pent up. [29:42] I think part of it is because... [29:44] there's been too many feelings. We, the feelings spill us over. [29:50] There's quite a bit going on. I would say the, the main thing, [29:54] thing to talk about is that [29:56] were in a little bit of like a toddler relationship. [30:00] moment in this business. We're not like a baby anymore. We're not just like newborn fresh. We're like [30:08] Terrible twos. [30:10] that's what it feels like where it feels I don't have a child, but I've seen lots of my friends raised two year olds and it's really hard. It's really, really hard. And, uh, I feel exhausted and I like, love the work and I love the business and I couldn't, it's my entire personality. Like it's, it's my whole personality. And I'm so sorry about that to people who hang out with me and who know me, I couldn't love it more, but it is, um, [30:40] Just being a little... [30:43] hard to manage and having some existential yeah uh feelings about that so anyway yeah ups and downs lots of the the the mood swings are very real high highs low lows i'd say a high high was brand new like that day was incredible and and the the week that followed was one of the worst worst weeks i had in this business and the the sort of two weeks i follow that were yeah some

[31:13] faced as a business. And it's so funny, like the higher that you go, [31:18] the deaver that you can go as well. And yeah, [31:22] It's, you know, and that's because stakes are higher. There's more visibility on things. But I think a part of it is we've, you and I have invested, you know, [31:30] nearly three years, [31:32] "in the trenches." [31:33] building this thing. And so when the lows come, it feels... [31:38] As though... [31:39] those three years of building get questioned. [31:42] if that was the right investment to make with your own life and your own time, that's what at least comes up for me where I'm like, man, man, [31:50] have we been working at the [31:52] wrong thing or have I been pouring my life force into the wrong thing and [31:58] It's amazing how [32:00] it can be so up and so down, so dramatically. [32:03] Yeah. [32:03] I feel that. I think also what comes up for me is this idea of... [32:09] public perception around the business and feeling like [32:15] As the business grows, as market conditions change, there's [32:21] more energy around boys club and there's more visibility as you're saying, um, [32:26] around what we're doing and it's [32:29] wonderful and [32:31] so great. And I think, [32:33] for [32:34] people like us who just want to be, [32:39] real and transparent and open about what the experience of building this business is.

[32:45] it starts to feel like really... [32:48] more risky or something to be as open about what's hard about this business. And also there's a responsibility to, [32:57] other people. Like it's not just you and I and how we feel and what we want to talk about. Like there's a responsibility to partners and to people who work at Boys Club and to the community and all of these things that are [33:09] really [33:10] important and that need to be like held and respected and thought through. And I'm confronted by like, [33:17] I don't want to just share all our dirty laundry on this podcast all the time because we can't do that anymore. Not only because... [33:25] It's potentially... [33:26] hurts the brand and hurts our growth potential. But there's also like real people involved now. And it doesn't [33:34] have the same... [33:36] it has a different impact when you're sharing things. [33:40] what is... [33:41] hard. [33:42] Yeah, I will say we're talking very theoretically right now and very zoomed out. And I appreciate that might be not interesting for people. I do want to say like I can point to tactically one thing that we've been really struggling with and how we're thinking about it. And that is growth. We are media business right now. [33:59] And if we're not [34:01] getting net new [34:03] audience. [34:04] to our various channels and media properties then we're stagnating and [34:12] For this podcast, for example, I think...

[34:16] We have incredible... [34:17] loyal [34:19] devoted listeners and [34:20] I love you so much. And we're really struggling to find new people to bring in to listen to this podcast as an example. [34:31] I think that it's a TAM issue. I think the total addressable market for... [34:36] people who are interested in talking about kind of Web3 and crypto and also are willing to listen to that conversation. [34:45] by two women who are willing to say that they don't know always what they're talking about is small. Like there's kind of a... [34:53] There's plenty of podcasts and properties by dudes who are super confident and talk about this stuff. Like they know everything that's going on. And that attracts, I think, a lot more people than us. [35:05] being like, I'm not sure. Let's kind of explore it and walk around it and figure it out together. And I think that [35:11] like already the TAM for these types of conversations are small. And then we're layering on another element to it, which is like, not only is that TAM small, it's dominated by a certain type of person. And so we're trying to take a subset of that subset and it's small. And like our strategy has always been like, let's just grow the pie. Let's grow the pie. Let's grow the TAM. Let's grow the TAM. Like that's what the job of Boys Club is to like bring crypto conversations and Web3 conversations and like new internet conversations to new circles. And we did that at Brand New and [35:40] And that's like what we try to do with our zine and different things that we [35:44] do as boys club, but it's hard and it's hard to, to break out into net new verticals and conversations. And I think we're just like really feeling the effect of that right now with how we're thinking about growth and numbers and our, our media properties. And I don't know what the solve is.

[36:01] Totally. [36:03] I think what's hard is like, [36:04] We've been looking at that problem for a while. [36:06] Yeah. Like that's not a new problem. And that's [36:09] not something that we woke up [36:11] on Monday and we're like, oh wow, we need to go to the podcast. I feel like I've been looking at that and sort of staring at it and trying to find a new way in on it and like, [36:21] over the past [36:22] eight months. And so... [36:24] it just makes me... [36:25] question... [36:27] my own [36:28] ability and [36:30] Also... [36:32] Thank you. [36:32] Specifically with podcasts, like... [36:35] It's... [36:36] like kind of screaming into a void. Like, [36:39] There's all of these things that you're wondering, is it format? Is it length? Is it release time? Is it host? Is it content? Is it guests? There's all these questions that, yeah, we get feedback from our community, which is so useful. Like, [36:53] couldn't be more useful. [36:55] But... [36:57] It's really hard. [36:58] To diagnose. Yeah, it's really hard to diagnose. And so it feels like a little crazy making because you also you're working in timelines that are [37:07] week to week. So it's not something you can figure out. And like, even over the course of the next month, that's for opportunities to try something, which you want to try things independent of trying other things, because then you can't diagnose what it is. So [37:21] It's just like feels like a really long lead time to an answer. And, [37:26] when you are building a business, all you're thinking about is time because your time is money. And

[37:33] You're thinking about, well, if we're investing in this, we can invest in this for X amount of months because then our runway looks like this and it's these expenses and this money coming in. And like that's. [37:43] Like you and I are looking at that every single day and looking at a spreadsheet of money going in and money going out every single day. And so any change you make to that has a, like, I've, [37:53] significant impact in the reality of the business. And so, um, yeah, I think I'm feeling those pain points and, um, um, [38:04] it's raining in New York and I'm jet lagged and like the realities of like your life are, [38:10] right here. And... [38:12] They really matter to me. Like all of the stuff really matters to me. And so... [38:17] It feels really difficult to [38:19] try to find an answer and [38:23] I [38:24] couldn't be less... [38:26] pragmatic about it. Like I'm so emotive and emotional about it and like so [38:31] like everything feels... [38:34] heavy around it because I care so much and I think you're similar. And so it's, [38:42] Yeah, just I feel... [38:44] a lot of feelings about it and I want to figure it out. And I, I really like, [38:49] think we can, but what I keep coming back to is like, man, I wish this was like a new issue in the business and not like a issue that I feel like I've been looking at. [38:57] Yeah, yeah. And so my friend Tamara is a nutritionist. We had her on the pod once and she whenever she gives.

[39:04] nutrition advice. She talks about like, I think she calls it an elimination diet, where in order to diagnose what the issue is, [39:13] that the thing that you're eating is causing [39:16] whatever the issue is. [39:18] you have to take it out one at a time. [39:20] and you have to take out [39:22] dairy and try without dairy for three weeks and keep a food journal the whole time to see how not having just dairy affects you and then you do dairy and if the problem still persists, it's like, okay, now I'm going to take out [39:35] Nuts. [39:36] And then you have to do the same process over again for three weeks and keep a food journal the whole time. And like you were saying, I had started a document this morning that was like growth strategy. And there's so many variables. [39:49] Yeah. [39:49] And we don't have the time [39:52] to try and isolate those individual variables to see if they're the thing that are... [39:57] the issue. And it's like, you kind of just have to do everything at once. And if you're doing everything at once, it feels like such a shot in the dark. [40:04] we're just like, whoo, like wandering around. So [40:08] That's the feelings. That's the feelings. Thanks for listening. [40:16] We love you. We love you. Thank you so much for listening. It really means it means everything. And [40:22] that keeps us going it really does it really does thank you bye