30. Web5, NFT Watches, Discord Competitor, YGG Merit Circle DAO Legal Battle
In this episode, we discuss the former CEO of Twitter (Jack Dorsey) launching a Web 5 platform, Tag Heuer developing watches that can display NFTs, Nansen launching a new messaging application to compete with Discord, a settlement being reached between YGG and Merit Circle DAO, and so much more!
Episode 30 Keywords: Twitter, Web5 experiences, Tag Heuer, watches, NFT, Nansen, messaging application, Discord, settlement, YGG, Merit Circle DAO, legal, yield guild games
Transcript
Welcome to the metaphysics podcast. The
Unknown:Metaverse and web three are bringing about the biggest
Unknown:revolution since the internet itself. With your hosts Paul the
Unknown:prophet Dawalibi And Jeff the juice Cohen. We will be bringing
Unknown:you the latest Metaverse, business news and insight into
Unknown:what it all means. The meta business podcast starts now.
Paul Dawalibi:From the boardroom to the metaverse. This
Paul Dawalibi:is the men of business podcast. I am Paul the Prophet Dawalibi.
Paul Dawalibi:I'm joined today by my friend and CO hosts, Jeff the juice
Paul Dawalibi:Cohen. For those of you who are new here, welcome to the the
Paul Dawalibi:official podcast of the metaverse, what we do is we
Paul Dawalibi:cover the most pressing, Metaverse, topics and news of
Paul Dawalibi:the week, we look at all of it through a business and C suite
Paul Dawalibi:lens, we dissect, we analyze the business implications of
Paul Dawalibi:everything happening in this industry. For regular listeners,
Paul Dawalibi:thank you for tuning in every week. Thank you for all the love
Paul Dawalibi:the five star ratings and reviews guys I've gotten and
Paul Dawalibi:I've read some of the reviews you've left. I read all of them,
Paul Dawalibi:in fact, so much love there. I really appreciate it. We really
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Paul Dawalibi:if you haven't yet, if you loved the show, go leave a review. Let
Paul Dawalibi:us know what you think. And share the podcast with a friend
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Jeff Cohen:it. Jeff, how you doing this week? Dude? Good.
Jeff Cohen:Good. We are recording in the middle of the crypto winter.
Jeff Cohen:Suppose maybe we'll talk more about that. But it's interesting
Jeff Cohen:talk.
Paul Dawalibi:It is interesting times I've heard I've heard
Paul Dawalibi:different takes on this right I've I've heard people say this
Paul Dawalibi:is just like one of many winters like there have been four other
Paul Dawalibi:winters and this is the fifth winter. And each successive
Paul Dawalibi:winter gets less and less sort of horrible. But yeah, like
Paul Dawalibi:this. This is if you know the first one was devastating
Paul Dawalibi:Blizzard This is a little bit of a flurry. So I've heard various
Paul Dawalibi:takes and I think it's interesting. I think a lot of it
Paul Dawalibi:is a little bit sensationalized. You know, obviously public
Paul Dawalibi:markets have been getting killed and bitcoins been getting killed
Paul Dawalibi:and many, you know, crypto projects have been hurting and
Paul Dawalibi:companies you know, Celsius. Most recently I don't know if
Paul Dawalibi:you saw blocked all withdrawals on their platform. So there's
Paul Dawalibi:definitely like, like victims and all this. There are
Paul Dawalibi:definitely casualties I should say not victims casualties and
Paul Dawalibi:all this. But winter always seems so drastic to me. I don't
Paul Dawalibi:know. What do you think?
Jeff Cohen:I'm back? I don't know. I'm gonna assume you had a
Jeff Cohen:good take about the crypto winter while I was while I was
Jeff Cohen:gone. I agree with what you were saying when I was when I was
Jeff Cohen:doing here what you were saying were this time feels a bit less
Jeff Cohen:existential. Where it's like, yeah, the product market fit of
Jeff Cohen:Bitcoin and crypto has sort of been proven. And this this fall
Jeff Cohen:down deals a little bit more driven by the macro versus like,
Jeff Cohen:hey, you know, crypto overall is going away or isn't a product as
Jeff Cohen:use case. Now we are seeing some one off things like some of
Jeff Cohen:these terror all these baby like algorithmic stable coins that
Jeff Cohen:obviously that's not what we talked about in this podcast.
Jeff Cohen:And frankly, I'm not educated enough to talk about that. But
Jeff Cohen:we have seen those maybe go away. Generally, you know, this
Jeff Cohen:is the time to start to be building great things. So I
Jeff Cohen:would say
Paul Dawalibi:the the silver lining for the metaverse stuff
Paul Dawalibi:is a lot of the projects that raised venture money and a lot
Paul Dawalibi:of these companies are just very well financed right now. The big
Paul Dawalibi:crypto companies are well financed a lot of these
Paul Dawalibi:Metaverse web three blockchain gaming, like a lot of these
Paul Dawalibi:companies have raised a lot of money in the last 12 months. And
Paul Dawalibi:and the good companies will have capital to survive whatever
Paul Dawalibi:however long this winter lasts, right? I think that's in my
Paul Dawalibi:mind. That's the silver lining, good companies are well
Paul Dawalibi:capitalized because of the volume of money and dollars that
Paul Dawalibi:have been flowing into the
Unknown:space. I want to start,
Paul Dawalibi:Jeff, as we usually do with kind of a fun
Paul Dawalibi:story. And and this one you fly. And I have to read it to really
Paul Dawalibi:understand what they're talking about here. But the headline is,
Paul Dawalibi:what went five is and why you should know about it. I mean, we
Paul Dawalibi:we talked at length about web three, I didn't think we were
Paul Dawalibi:already behind the curve here. But seems we've we've not only
Paul Dawalibi:gotten past web three, we've skipped web four. We're at web
Paul Dawalibi:five joking here. What they mean by this is it's a combination.
Paul Dawalibi:This is being developed by Bitcoin blockchain. Or it's
Paul Dawalibi:being developed on the Bitcoin Blockchain by one of the
Paul Dawalibi:companies of Twitter see former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. And
Paul Dawalibi:basically what they're the way they're describing it. It's a
Paul Dawalibi:combination of web three. Dotto are web three and web two Dotto.
Paul Dawalibi:Two plus three equals five I guess and and that it's a more
Paul Dawalibi:truly decentralized Internet where you know, ownership of
Paul Dawalibi:your content is is all built on the blockchain. And you know,
Paul Dawalibi:there's nothing that is centralized, I guess there's no
Paul Dawalibi:central servers, there's nothing. There's nothing that is
Paul Dawalibi:not owned directly by the users. So there's no web monopolies.
Paul Dawalibi:There's no large tech companies. And the argument that Dorsey
Paul Dawalibi:makes is that web three, while it talks about decentralization,
Paul Dawalibi:is not truly decentralized, because it says VCs own it. It's
Paul Dawalibi:a he's quoted as saying it's ultimately a centralized entity
Paul Dawalibi:with a different label. So would you buy this web five argument?
Paul Dawalibi:Do you think it's a bit silly to be talking about web five?
Paul Dawalibi:Before we've really flushed out web three? What do you make of
Paul Dawalibi:this?
Jeff Cohen:I just feel bad for what for a while. But to me, you
Jeff Cohen:know, it's, it's a bit, it's a bit much. I mean, what three is
Jeff Cohen:itself is all about centralization. So I think
Jeff Cohen:they're getting the main notes. Like to me, it's not a problem
Jeff Cohen:that a lot of the biggest companies in but greed are
Jeff Cohen:backed by VCs and half owners. I just think that's kind of how
Jeff Cohen:human nature works. Like when people create entities that are
Jeff Cohen:going to create a company that you're going to have, there's
Jeff Cohen:always going to be some form of centralization. Otherwise
Jeff Cohen:nothing's going to get done. Like in this web five is just
Jeff Cohen:going to be a roving army of individual robots, where it's
Jeff Cohen:like you just join a company one day, and then you go to the next
Jeff Cohen:Dow the next day, like, I just don't think that's how humans,
Jeff Cohen:like, fundamentally as a social species that work like that.
Jeff Cohen:It's just not really, we're not mercenaries. It's not, we're not
Jeff Cohen:robots. So it just, to me, it's it's, it's not it's not how not
Jeff Cohen:how,
Paul Dawalibi:yeah, I mean, I guess it's the implication of
Paul Dawalibi:what you're saying that true, a truly decentralized version of
Paul Dawalibi:the internet, or a truly decentralized Metaverse, in your
Paul Dawalibi:mind could never exist, or will never exist.
Jeff Cohen:Well, yeah. Because in order to have these, in order
Jeff Cohen:to have these things created, you're gonna have to create so I
Jeff Cohen:guess if he's saying like, okay, is his issue, as I understand is
Jeff Cohen:that many of the big companies that are building the
Jeff Cohen:infrastructure layer of web three, are themselves backed by
Jeff Cohen:what he considers institutions or for like, what two companies
Jeff Cohen:a VC funds, stuff like that. Now, I'm just not sure how else
Jeff Cohen:things would be formed, right? Like, is everything going to be
Jeff Cohen:coming down and we're just going to have large like, you know,
Jeff Cohen:decentral instrument work, like direct veils are going to become
Jeff Cohen:direct democracy, I guess.
Paul Dawalibi:The I mean, democracy is an interesting word
Paul Dawalibi:I was gonna call it just went five the way they've described,
Paul Dawalibi:it feels like total anarchy, right? Like, no structure, no,
Paul Dawalibi:no centralized authority of any kind. No, you know, nothing,
Paul Dawalibi:driving a vision in any way. Feels a little bit like anarchy.
Paul Dawalibi:And I just don't understand why 100% decentralization needs to
Paul Dawalibi:be a goal or why it's an important goal read, like, if
Paul Dawalibi:you can get something. And I know, these are fake numbers,
Paul Dawalibi:but 80% decentralized, were just some key infrastructure is it
Paul Dawalibi:you know, is centralized in some way? And maybe that's a little
Paul Dawalibi:bit like more web to Dotto, but if web 2.0 is 80%, can we get to
Paul Dawalibi:95%? Or whatever it is, right? Like? I don't understand why
Paul Dawalibi:100% Is the goal here? Like, what is the benefit, really? And
Paul Dawalibi:can you achieve those benefits still with some amount of
Paul Dawalibi:centralization? And
Jeff Cohen:it's also a really hypocritical argument by Jack
Jeff Cohen:Dorsey, right? Because he has created a company that is
Jeff Cohen:creating this division, which the company has shareholders. So
Jeff Cohen:it's like, oh, it's different because you Jack Dorsey, own it,
Jeff Cohen:versus Coinbase, which is owned by, you know, a16z yourself,
Jeff Cohen:like, how is that different? Right? You're still creating the
Jeff Cohen:employees, the employees are building a product. You know, it
Jeff Cohen:to me, it's new. That's why I was struggling before to
Jeff Cohen:articulate. It's like, I don't know what's different about this
Jeff Cohen:web five vision that he is espoused?
Paul Dawalibi:I think it's more just I think it was silliness. I
Paul Dawalibi:don't know. But interesting article, and it works because we
Paul Dawalibi:clicked on it, and we talked about it. But beyond that, I
Paul Dawalibi:don't think there's much to it. Let's talk about something that
Paul Dawalibi:I think is we I think we both agree is more interesting, and
Paul Dawalibi:that is tag tag coyer TAG Heuer, tag Boyer in the news. A famous
Paul Dawalibi:watchmaker. The headline here tag horror watches to display NF
Paul Dawalibi:T's, the ultimate status symbol, display NF T's in real life as
Paul Dawalibi:the new cool. Free the no CEO of LVMH tag Boyer explains all. So,
Paul Dawalibi:no who's one of the one of the sons of Brecknock know who owns
Paul Dawalibi:LVMH, which is this huge luxury conglomerate. I think he's a
Paul Dawalibi:pretty big crypto enthusiast himself. And the idea is they've
Paul Dawalibi:added functionality to one of their smartwatches were in the
Paul Dawalibi:background, you can connect it to your crypto wallet, like meta
Paul Dawalibi:mask or ledger live, and the watch face will display your NFT
Paul Dawalibi:artwork. If you're watching this episode, instead of listening to
Paul Dawalibi:you can see an example here of a bored ape in the in the back of
Paul Dawalibi:a watch, or in the dial of the watch. Jeff, your thoughts on
Paul Dawalibi:this, you know, luxury status symbol combined with NF TS is
Paul Dawalibi:this. Finally, an interesting use case for these NF T's?
Jeff Cohen:I like it. I mean, NF T's have always been about
Jeff Cohen:being a status symbol. That's why we were both very actually
Jeff Cohen:positive when Twitter made it such that you make your profile
Jeff Cohen:picture NFT. So I think it's a really smart use case. You know,
Jeff Cohen:watch us have always been a bit of a status symbol, like a show
Jeff Cohen:off kind of status purchase. And the fact that you can now
Jeff Cohen:display your NFT and have it be validated by the blockchain is
Jeff Cohen:actually something that I think is pretty useful. I think this
Jeff Cohen:will probably get a decent amount of adoption. It's one of
Jeff Cohen:the better use cases for NF T's that I can think of. I mean,
Jeff Cohen:clearly gaming is has been wanting to talk about,
Jeff Cohen:obviously, all the time has been really good use case. Our real
Jeff Cohen:estate, like there's some various things that nfts
Jeff Cohen:blockchain has worked for. This is actually up there my mind.
Paul Dawalibi:Yeah, I agree. I really liked this. And, and I
Paul Dawalibi:think you hit the nail on the head with the idea of status
Paul Dawalibi:symbol, you're combining an NF t, which is already a status
Paul Dawalibi:symbol, with a watch, which is also a status symbol. And the
Paul Dawalibi:dials of watches are a big part of that status, right? Like a
Paul Dawalibi:Rolex with the Wimbledon dial is worth more than a Rolex with
Paul Dawalibi:just the black dial. And, and you know, so the certain dials
Paul Dawalibi:become more collectible. Here you have a dial that is it,
Paul Dawalibi:assuming the NFT is unique, completely unique, right. And
Paul Dawalibi:that's, that makes it more desirable, it makes it more of a
Paul Dawalibi:status symbol. If you own a very valuable and rare NF T, all of a
Paul Dawalibi:sudden, that watch becomes an even greater status symbol. I
Paul Dawalibi:think it's kind of genius. And it's, it's super easy for them
Paul Dawalibi:to have implemented right? Like, this is something Apple could do
Paul Dawalibi:very easily with their Apple Watch, you would think?
Unknown:I think we'll see your guests, or
Paul Dawalibi:Well, that's what I was gonna ask you. Do you see
Paul Dawalibi:it? Because there's no bigger install base of smartwatches
Paul Dawalibi:than the Apple Watch? Do you see that as functionality that maybe
Paul Dawalibi:they bring?
Jeff Cohen:I think we will. And, you know, I don't know the
Jeff Cohen:apple smartwatch ecosystem that well, but could Metamask just
Jeff Cohen:create an app on there, because I believe this is just basically
Jeff Cohen:metamath Like whatever crypto wallet you're using as an app
Jeff Cohen:that then displays the, you know, the, the image of the NFT.
Jeff Cohen:So technically, I don't even know that Apple would
Jeff Cohen:necessarily have to accept it into their their store. But I
Jeff Cohen:don't know that there would need to be a massive business
Jeff Cohen:development to where I think metal Metamask could probably
Jeff Cohen:just go and do this themselves. And I think it would be very
Jeff Cohen:wise of them to do so. Because it's a great use case. And yeah,
Jeff Cohen:I'm sure there's plenty of people with Apple Watches I
Jeff Cohen:would love to have this either created watch face.
Paul Dawalibi:I mean, with Apple, it's always better when
Paul Dawalibi:it's like a first party thing and it's an official watch face
Paul Dawalibi:that they offer or whatever. I don't know what the API's for
Paul Dawalibi:like third party watch faces looks like. But you know, I
Paul Dawalibi:really liked this idea of luxury watch and call it luxury NFT.
Paul Dawalibi:together that makes it makes a lot of sense to me. All right,
Paul Dawalibi:let's let's talk about discord discord in the news. And again,
Paul Dawalibi:a little bit of a sensational headline here. Dump discord
Paul Dawalibi:Nansen launches messaging app for web three communities. It
Paul Dawalibi:says the analytics platform Nansen aims to take a bite out
Paul Dawalibi:of discord, its dominance, with a new messenger service for NFT
Paul Dawalibi:projects and more. So this is a crypto analytics firm. They
Paul Dawalibi:launched the messaging app. The app requires a crypto wallet to
Paul Dawalibi:use and it's targeted at NFT and crypto communities. Basically,
Paul Dawalibi:the login with your crypto wallet, you connect to groups
Paul Dawalibi:based on your crypto holdings, and which NF T's you verifiably
Paul Dawalibi:own. The firm describes the app as a crypto native
Paul Dawalibi:communications hub for web three communities now. I mean, I don't
Paul Dawalibi:know if you want to address the headline, Jeff, like dumped
Paul Dawalibi:discord. And if you think this is a legitimate competitor for
Paul Dawalibi:discord, or if you you accept that this is maybe a bit of a
Paul Dawalibi:sensational headline, and I think it is there a place for
Paul Dawalibi:this app in the ecosystem. It's a
Jeff Cohen:it's definitely a sensational headline, I don't
Jeff Cohen:think people are, you know, Discord is going to lose its
Jeff Cohen:competitive advantage, particularly with the network
Jeff Cohen:effects it has and the ecosystem that's built around gaming.
Jeff Cohen:Having said that, I think the wallet integration is
Jeff Cohen:interesting. And it's potentially an area where
Jeff Cohen:discord has left flank open a little bit. I remember, early in
Jeff Cohen:the year, Discord had talked about doing an integration with
Jeff Cohen:a wallet, and I believe they ended up backing off from it
Jeff Cohen:because they got a bunch of backlash from their community.
Jeff Cohen:So I think that is an area where maybe on the crypto front, a lot
Jeff Cohen:of these crypto communities are on Discord. And the fact that
Jeff Cohen:this court hasn't really integrated any of that
Jeff Cohen:technology in like you actually an area where they're, they're a
Jeff Cohen:bit open to open to attack. However, I don't love the idea
Jeff Cohen:of gaining the top of the funnel for a messenger app to have
Jeff Cohen:having to have a wallet. And then in order to be in these
Jeff Cohen:communities, you have to have the NFT. Because with any
Jeff Cohen:messenger app, like the number one thing is network, you need
Jeff Cohen:to be able to message anyone, anyone needs to have the app. So
Jeff Cohen:like, anytime you're adding friction to that top of the
Jeff Cohen:funnel, you're gonna lose some of those network effects. So I
Jeff Cohen:think ultimately, that that part is where I struggle with. I also
Jeff Cohen:don't know that you need a separate messenger app to talk
Jeff Cohen:about crypto, right? Like at the end of the day, I can talk about
Jeff Cohen:crypto and telegram I could talk about tech specially talking
Jeff Cohen:about discord. It's really who has the best tools for building
Jeff Cohen:communities, and who has the most users, which is what the
Jeff Cohen:platform that's going to win. Like I don't know that having a
Jeff Cohen:vertical focused platform for a chat app is smart. Which is
Jeff Cohen:interesting, because it's actually the opposite thesis
Jeff Cohen:that I had for treat NFT trading platforms where I was actually
Jeff Cohen:very bullish on the verticalization. Here, I'm not
Jeff Cohen:so curious what you
Paul Dawalibi:Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you on the gate is
Paul Dawalibi:the problem, right? Like, I think that sentence really
Paul Dawalibi:bothered me where you need a crypto wallet to use it like
Paul Dawalibi:right off the bat, you will eliminate you know 90% of
Paul Dawalibi:discord user base probably right? Like if if we assume that
Paul Dawalibi:if you look at the total gaming population, and then the total,
Paul Dawalibi:right, you know, owner of crypto wallets, it's about an order of
Paul Dawalibi:magnitude difference. So, right like you you eliminate 90% of
Paul Dawalibi:your potential customers immediately just by requiring a
Paul Dawalibi:crypto wallet. And I get it it it keeps it so that the people
Paul Dawalibi:who own that, you know, NF T, that series of NF T's can all
Paul Dawalibi:talk to each other. But I don't see that as a feature I see that
Paul Dawalibi:as as a downside because that was the reason discord has
Paul Dawalibi:exploded as the platform of choice for these communities. Is
Paul Dawalibi:it allowed for discovery of the communities right? Like you want
Paul Dawalibi:to you create an NFT project, you want to people to buy your
Paul Dawalibi:NF T's. The whole point on Discord was to create these
Paul Dawalibi:communities bring in as many people as possible, create as
Paul Dawalibi:much hype as possible, so that you drive the price up of your
Paul Dawalibi:NFT. I mean, if you gave it to only the people who already own
Paul Dawalibi:it, I don't know how you create any discovery, right? Like you
Paul Dawalibi:lose that whole piece of the equation. I don't know why you
Paul Dawalibi:would want not want people who don't own it. Like they should
Paul Dawalibi:still be allowed to talk about it. So I'm not I'm with you on
Paul Dawalibi:the gates. The problem. I wouldn't go so far though, is to
Paul Dawalibi:say that a vertically focused plan like chat, or community
Paul Dawalibi:platform could never work. I just don't think a gated one
Paul Dawalibi:could work. Right? If you said hey, we want to be the platform,
Paul Dawalibi:not for gamers, but for just two people to talk about NF T's and
Paul Dawalibi:NFT projects. So don't waste your time on Discord where
Paul Dawalibi:there's a lot of noise and you know, a bunch of other stuff
Paul Dawalibi:that I would get but then if you say hey, by the way, we're also
Paul Dawalibi:going to gate it and you need to have a wallet and you need to
Paul Dawalibi:own the specific NFT to talk about it. Well now that that
Paul Dawalibi:doesn't make sense, right? That vertical community doesn't make
Paul Dawalibi:sense. That's fair. I could see
Jeff Cohen:a little bit like vertical almost like a message
Jeff Cohen:boards like a reddit but really hyperfocus to create
Jeff Cohen:discoverability because I think if you just log into discord and
Jeff Cohen:you're not coming from somewhere It's hard to find things that
Jeff Cohen:might be interesting. Like there's no true, you know, hot
Jeff Cohen:topics or like, you know, rooms that are interested or because
Jeff Cohen:you're in this room, you should join this. We're like so
Jeff Cohen:discoverability on Discord is a bit of an issue. So I do think
Jeff Cohen:maybe I'll soften my stance a little bit where I could see
Jeff Cohen:almost like a Reddit crypto, you know, like a targeted Reddit
Jeff Cohen:work. Yeah.
Paul Dawalibi:Jeff, let's move on. Let's talk about legal
Paul Dawalibi:battle in the web three and Metaverse world here. And this
Paul Dawalibi:is this is a bit of an interesting like kind of a deep
Paul Dawalibi:one here. So let me try and summarize as best I can. Please
Paul Dawalibi:feel free to stop me here because I know you had done more
Paul Dawalibi:research on this than I did. But the headline here is legal
Paul Dawalibi:battle avoided after why GG and married circle Tao agree to a
Paul Dawalibi:deal. So what's happened here is Merritt circle is a company that
Paul Dawalibi:created Mid America circle Dow, they help gamers interested in
Paul Dawalibi:play to earn games, by lending items from their treasury to be
Paul Dawalibi:used for gameplay. It's basically a guild right marriage
Paul Dawalibi:circle bow. It's a guild we've talked about guilds before on
Paul Dawalibi:this podcast. Originally, the Dow passed a proposal that would
Paul Dawalibi:cancel y G. G, yield guild games, which is a, you know, a
Paul Dawalibi:larger organization, they would cancel YG G's simple agreement
Paul Dawalibi:for future tokens. In other words, an investment that why GG
Paul Dawalibi:had committed to in merit circle Dow, but thou passed a proposal
Paul Dawalibi:that would say, we're only going to refund the 175,000 US dollar
Paul Dawalibi:coin, that why GG contributed originally? In other words, why
Paul Dawalibi:did you make an investment in merit circle, Dow med circle,
Paul Dawalibi:Dow at some point says hey, we're going to cancel this
Paul Dawalibi:investment and just give you back your money, as opposed to
Paul Dawalibi:giving back the value of that investment
Unknown:right at that point in time.
Paul Dawalibi:Now, the resolution, just to get to the
Paul Dawalibi:point here seems to be that why GG is walking away with still
Paul Dawalibi:walking away with 10 times their original investment that after
Paul Dawalibi:this, I guess, protracted legal battle? That seems to be the
Paul Dawalibi:proposal that both sides have accepted. So why Gigi is gonna
Paul Dawalibi:get a return on their investment, and not just their
Paul Dawalibi:money back. But I know, there's some interesting conversation
Paul Dawalibi:you have around, you know, what does this all mean? What does it
Paul Dawalibi:mean for investment in Dows? Like, I know, you had some
Paul Dawalibi:thoughts on this.
Jeff Cohen:Yeah. And it gets an interesting moment in the future
Jeff Cohen:of Dallas, which I think is a little bit tied into the future.
Jeff Cohen:The Metaverse future of crypto because people and we were even
Jeff Cohen:just talking about this earlier, like, will the future companies
Jeff Cohen:in the metaverse be formed as Dows. So I think this is a
Jeff Cohen:little bit of a seminal moment in the sense that, you know, if,
Jeff Cohen:if, if it were that anyone who invested into a Dow could
Jeff Cohen:essentially be have their investment voted down to zero in
Jeff Cohen:the future, I think that would really, you know, kill a ton of
Jeff Cohen:institutional investment into these daps when really kind of
Jeff Cohen:destroy the, the, the essence of the product and itself. So I've
Jeff Cohen:seen, I've seen a lot of like crypto bros on Twitter, and
Jeff Cohen:people on LinkedIn kind of referencing the story in a
Jeff Cohen:positive light, sort of talking about almost like, Brett like,
Jeff Cohen:you know, bragging and dunking about how great it is that the
Jeff Cohen:Dow has the autonomy to do this. And I view it as a really big
Jeff Cohen:negative, if this if this were to have stood, and even the fact
Jeff Cohen:that it possibly could have happened, who really hurt any
Jeff Cohen:future institutional investor who says, Hey, I'm going to
Jeff Cohen:invest in a doubt, because they know that at any point, you
Jeff Cohen:know, the tyranny of the majority, and now could just
Jeff Cohen:say, hey, well, thanks for the capital you gave to us a year
Jeff Cohen:ago, we've now 10x their business, and here's your money
Jeff Cohen:back like, or they could just say in the future, well, here's
Jeff Cohen:nothing, we voted you out. So I think in what when you create a
Jeff Cohen:structure that is autonomous and doesn't have a legal entity or
Jeff Cohen:legal structure behind it, you run a lot of risks. So if I were
Jeff Cohen:an institutional investor, I wouldn't touch it now. You know,
Jeff Cohen:based on based on this,
Paul Dawalibi:you know, it's the it's a little bit the
Paul Dawalibi:confidence of the mob, right? Like, you have these
Paul Dawalibi:decentralized, autonomous or semi autonomous kind of
Paul Dawalibi:organizations. And, and it creates a level of anonymity
Paul Dawalibi:that that makes it feel like that should be able to get away
Paul Dawalibi:with things that normal organizations can. I don't think
Paul Dawalibi:being a Dao absolves you of good business practice, ethical
Paul Dawalibi:business practice. And, you know, following contract law
Paul Dawalibi:really, again, we run into a situation where too much
Paul Dawalibi:decentralization starts to feel like anarchy, and systems break
Paul Dawalibi:down. And to your point, if all the institutional money loses
Paul Dawalibi:trust, what happens to Dows? I mean, these things need to be
Paul Dawalibi:funded from somewhere. And if no one has any confidence in the
Paul Dawalibi:ability of these Dows to honor agreements, whether it's an
Paul Dawalibi:investment or otherwise, you have a really big industry
Paul Dawalibi:problem, right? Like, this is not you and the crypto bros can
Paul Dawalibi:laugh about it. You know, all they want, I agree with you,
Paul Dawalibi:this is a really dangerous kind of story to cut to have come
Paul Dawalibi:out. Because it casts doubt on the trustworthiness of any of
Paul Dawalibi:these things. And when you put your money into into something
Paul Dawalibi:like this, where does it go, you know, have any control over
Paul Dawalibi:getting it back at any point in time. And, you know, if we were
Paul Dawalibi:to not talking about Dows here, and we were just talking about
Paul Dawalibi:any old web three startup, where the founder decided to just give
Paul Dawalibi:the investor back their original investment, right? We'd be
Paul Dawalibi:saying this guy is shady, this, this is criminal. This is this
Paul Dawalibi:is a crook. Right? Like, shut their business down. Just
Paul Dawalibi:because it's centralized wire, like, why are people not as
Paul Dawalibi:critical here? Right? Why? Because
Jeff Cohen:people, people are looking at it and be like, Oh,
Jeff Cohen:how cool was it, like, the little guys all came together?
Jeff Cohen:And like, you know, we're able to vote out the man without
Jeff Cohen:really understanding or thinking further about what the
Jeff Cohen:consequences of that really mean. And I think you brought up
Jeff Cohen:the correct word. I mean, it's trust. And I think right now,
Jeff Cohen:the entire crypto space is facing a little bit of a
Jeff Cohen:confidence or crisis of trust, or they just look what we've
Jeff Cohen:seen since the outbreak stablecoins The price of Bitcoin
Jeff Cohen:Aetherium. And now, you know, throw in this a little bit with
Jeff Cohen:Dallas. Trust is a fragile thing, particularly when you're
Jeff Cohen:dealing with institutional investors and folks that
Jeff Cohen:inherently didn't trust this system to begin with. And then
Jeff Cohen:you throw in stories like this, and it really can pull off
Jeff Cohen:funding environment for Dallas, specifically very, very quickly.
Jeff Cohen:Yeah,
Paul Dawalibi:I think people in in emerging industries
Paul Dawalibi:underestimate how damaging just one or two pieces of bad news,
Paul Dawalibi:just one or two bad actors can be to the the investor sentiment
Paul Dawalibi:on the space as a whole. Right? Like, it's one of these things
Paul Dawalibi:where what's the, what's the crypto motto, it's we're all
Paul Dawalibi:we're all gonna make it or whatever, right?
Unknown:We're all black me.
Paul Dawalibi:Um, but I think I think like the better one, if
Paul Dawalibi:we're talking about Metaverse, web three, in general is more
Paul Dawalibi:like, we're all in this together, right. And if you have
Paul Dawalibi:a bad few bad actors, decentralized or not autonomous
Paul Dawalibi:or not, it really spoils everything. And it's something
Paul Dawalibi:that I think we need to call out. And everyone should be
Paul Dawalibi:calling out and be really careful about and, and not be
Paul Dawalibi:tolerant that frankly, because it ruins it ruins it for
Paul Dawalibi:everybody. So interesting story. And look, in the end, they got
Paul Dawalibi:10 times their money back, which I also kind of laughed about,
Paul Dawalibi:like, in the in the universe of investor returns a 10x is, you
Paul Dawalibi:know, considered to be, you know, the UN except an excellent
Paul Dawalibi:return, not more than excellent return. So, you know, it's sort
Paul Dawalibi:of all worked out. Maybe they were expecting 100 extra turn. I
Paul Dawalibi:don't know, maybe they're still upset about it. But the fact
Paul Dawalibi:that it did get resolved is somewhat promising. Jeff, that
Paul Dawalibi:wraps up this week's podcast Time flies when you're having
Paul Dawalibi:fun. I just want to remind people, guys, please share the
Paul Dawalibi:podcast, please send it to a friend or colleague. Make sure
Paul Dawalibi:to subscribe to our brother and sister podcast if you want to
Paul Dawalibi:call it that met a woman and business of esports. Go follow
Paul Dawalibi:Jeff on Twitter at Jeff Cohen 23. He's always got interesting
Paul Dawalibi:things. And make sure to watch this guy's Wednesday evenings
Paul Dawalibi:830 Eastern Time Jeff's there. I'm there. We do a whole show on
Paul Dawalibi:gaming news. So if you love the gaming piece of the content we
Paul Dawalibi:do here because gaming is a big part of the metaverse, you will
Paul Dawalibi:absolutely love that weekly new show live stream we do Wednesday
Paul Dawalibi:evenings at 830 Eastern time. You get Jeff's hot takes on a
Paul Dawalibi:whole bunch of things there. And I promise you it's worth worth
Paul Dawalibi:the time. So don't forget guys, the most important thing of all
Paul Dawalibi:though, the future is fun. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you guys for
Paul Dawalibi:listening. We'll see you next week.
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