Jan 6, 2023
Ethan Song is
the CEO of RareCircles, where he helps creators and brands build
communities in the Web3 economy.
3:58 What advice would you give your 13-year old self?
7:02 Don’t worry about the perfect plan. Do what you
love.
11:55 Can you explain what Web 3 is?
16:21 What’s going on with the adoption of blockchain.
19:52 What are the solutions? How do you help communities
evolve?
23:07 How to get your community started on the platform.
27:49 What’s going to happen to crypto in the next three to
five years.
29:55 If there is a reward system that has its own kind of
casino like coins or incentives, isn’t that just another form of
gambling?
Outline by https://otter.ai/referrals/AVPIT85N
Previously, Ethan was the founder and CEO of Frank And Oak,
which aimed to reshape the fashion industry by making it more
personal and sustainable. Frank And Oak was named Most innovative
company in retail by Fast Company and was #1 on the Deloitte Fast
50 list. Ethan was born in China, but has spent most of his life in
Canada. Ethan was previously a member of the CEO Council of Canada
and a mentor for various organizations including Techstars and the
C100. He is a forever optimist. Talking Points:
-
Web3, decentralized communities and the new internet.
-
The shift from corporations as the main form for business back to the individual.
-
New ways to bridge content and commerce.
-
Sustainable living.
-
Brand building and building from scratch.
-
The Metaverse and digital identities / goods.
-
Entrepreneurship.
arecircles.com
frankandoak.com
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Law
Smith 0:00
A sweat equity podcast stream show number one business comedy
podcast in the world remember you don't have a soundboard anymore I
do. We got
we're gonna say something we've got Ethan song from, from rare
circles.com former founder owner of Franken Oak 300 employees just
thought people just dropped that one. We talk a lot about web three
and you'll get it a little over our heads but you know, that's why
you listen to us on iTunes Apple podcasts, cryptocurrency, Spotify,
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What else? Are we on Samsung, all that stuff? You want to be
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hooks us up hooks you up make yourself feel good. Yeah, I already
do. All right. Let's get it going with Ethan song are circles
hot
Ethan Song 2:02
sweat
Law Smith 2:09
sweat sweat equity you are listening to the sweat equity
podcast. Sweat equity. Ethan so you can hear us we're all good.
Yeah, we'll get here Yeah, well, we didn't know if you're on Mars.
What is that? We're already in the background. What
Eric Readinger 2:31
planet are you on?
Law Smith 2:32
Yeah, is that Titan from? Avengers?
Ethan Song 2:37
I'm not sure exactly what planet I'm on actually. But I like
wherever I am. I like it. It
Law Smith 2:42
looks very Rick and Morty ask behind you. Yeah. What So Ethan
song Why don't you give the audience your plugs where to find you
how to how to contact, you know call to action, all that fun
stuff.
Ethan Song 2:59
Yeah, sure. And if you guys are interested in learning more
about you know what I'm working on? Or some like content you can
find me on Twitter at Mr. Ethan song. That's probably the easiest
way.
Law Smith 3:10
All right. And you have you have two brands. I understand. In
my in my correct here, we had a we had a booking snafu yesterday.
That was so we have to apologize at the front of this episode.
Because some I don't know why we got our wires crossed. But we zoom
just added a passcode onto the meeting for some reason. And
then
Eric Readinger 3:37
we put our phones on Do Not Disturb. Because we're pros. Yep.
And didn't see any emails. Sorry, right. No, no worries. I
Law Smith 3:47
don't where Are you videoing in from?
Ethan Song 3:51
I'm in Canada right now. I'm actually a west near Calgary. So
in Canada,
Law Smith 3:57
okay. Okay. Calgary is all I know about Calgary is that 2004
Stanley caught lightning beat the flames. Yeah. But I, I found out
that was at a point in time. I think it was 1990 or 19 years old or
something like that. Yeah, something like that. And it was, I
didn't realize it was like oil ish cowboy, kind of old school. It
felt like Texans almost that were hockey fans. Is that kind of an
apt description?
Ethan Song 4:30
I mean, I think I think if you were to compare, you know, from
province to state perspective, you would say that, yeah, Alberta,
which is a province is similar to Texas in many different ways from
the fact that you know, it's as more energy like, that's where to,
you know, all of the tar sands are in Canada. I actually find that
Calgary is starting to be a little bit like Austin, where there's
also tech, but it's this weird mix of like tax cowboys and also oil
and gas. So
Law Smith 4:59
blue suit A ton of in a red province, if you will. You know,
that's how you kind of compare Austin or Nashville or Tampa is a
little bit like that in Florida.
Eric Readinger 5:09
Is that where you're from either?
Ethan Song 5:13
Well, I was originally born in China. And I've also lived in
both Montreal and Vancouver. So I'm not from here, but I'm here
currently.
Eric Readinger 5:22
Canadian at heart though. Yeah, I'm
Ethan Song 5:25
mostly Canadian. Yeah.
Law Smith 5:27
All right. I've been to Montreal and Vancouver. Both are cool
cities. Montreal. Not a fan of me. But that's fine. Yeah, I can
imagine
Eric Readinger 5:34
you walking in there looking like that. Well,
Law Smith 5:36
I look like I get a parka. They're like, what's this frat guy
from the United States? We're literally walking around with a
football throwing it with like, Tim. Tim, why guys are so bachelor
party, nonetheless. But I did see a stripper. Take ice put it in
her who hot and spit it out as water. And that was kind of amazing.
So Canada is always gonna
Eric Readinger 5:57
so there goes our clean way. Make it three and a half
minute.
Law Smith 6:01
What that's still clean. I made it
Eric Readinger 6:02
shareable. That
Law Smith 6:04
look, that's sure what we're talking about. What? We don't
have any limits on this show. I know. But maybe we should. Maybe
Ethan will agree with us. Business Talk. You've heard some of the
most filthy things in the professional world behind closed doors.
That's why we kind of liked this podcast because it's like, let's
have some real talk. But I don't like the guys that are
aggressively disgusting. Like, right when you meet them, you know?
Yeah. For business meeting. They're like easy that sector Secretary
out there. And you're like, Brian, I'm not on your dean. Yep. This
is definitely an interesting way to open this episode.
Eric Readinger 6:42
HR wouldn't know about HR. Let's,
Law Smith 6:45
let's start with the question. We asked everybody that comes
on the first time, what advice would you give your 13 year old
self?
Ethan Song 6:54
I would say that's a very good question. 13 is an interesting
choice of age also.
Law Smith 6:59
Yep. It's on purpose.
Ethan Song 7:02
I think when I was young, I always wanted to have like a plan,
you know, like a master plan or a roadmap. And I realized over time
that those don't exist. So I would say like, just not worry about
the perfect plan. And just kind of follow your instinct and do what
you love. I think it's kind of corny, to be honest, I listen to
myself saying it. But it's the truth. In the sense that you just
don't know where life is gonna give you and so not worrying about
having a plan and just going for it, I think would probably be my
best advice.
Law Smith 7:33
Where are you a perfectionist growing up? And did that result
in like you almost getting in your own way kind of thing?
Ethan Song 7:41
Yeah, I was definitely a perfectionist in the sense that, you
know, my dad had a PhD in physics, we were like, you know, first
generation immigrants, I definitely fall a little bit that
stereotypical, you know, Asia and kind of like, high high
expectations on like, what I thought I could do. But I realized
over time that no one cares, like, no one cares about what you are
doing with your life. And therefore, you should just focus on
finding stuff that you know that you're into whether that's the
smallest thing like snowboarding or, or something more meaningful.
And so, yeah, I definitely felt that pressure when I was growing
up. But I think over time, I realized that, you know, it kind of
doesn't matter. And like, understanding that doesn't matter. That
is actually like a good thing. Because it frees you, you know, to
do whatever you want,
Eric Readinger 8:27
I think even finally figured out what I would say to my 13
year old, so no one cares. Yeah, that's all I would say. Yeah,
nobody cares. Yeah, they're thinking about themselves. Right,
right. Yeah.
Law Smith 8:40
I've heard that kind of adage a lot. Lately, for some reason.
It's just like, you think everybody's thinking about you. And no
one's they're all thinking about themselves. If anything, you might
be on the top 20 Maybe, but maybe,
Eric Readinger 8:56
yeah. Even when you're having it. Yeah,
Ethan Song 8:58
I agree. You know, because if you talk to someone who's like,
you know, later in life, and I like someone's like, 70, or
whatever, on your deathbed, or even like, I feel like they'll never
talk about like how other people like thought about them as being
somebody care about at that point in life. And I feel like that,
the younger you are, the more you care about what other people
think. And as you get older, you just realize less and less and you
almost want to just jump to that like deathbed where you just don't
give you know, yeah.
Eric Readinger 9:24
Yeah, there's a real it's true freedom. Yeah. Older people are
always saying crazy stuff. Just whatever they say what's on their
mind, because they really, who gives a shit and nobody cares?
What's going to happen?
Law Smith 9:35
Yeah, I got ahead of that. Yeah, I'm just been saying crazy
shit for
Eric Readinger 9:40
decades now. Yeah, exactly. Just get used to it.
Law Smith 9:43
So where are you hitting the you hitting the Paopao the norn
Are you getting down on the snowboard not focusing on figuring out
the path or do you want to be a pro snowboarder? What was what was
the plight? How did we get to here?
Ethan Song 9:59
Yeah, I mean, I, I saw I was at that time it was in Montreal,
and I wanted to kind of pursue more of an artistic career. So I
moved to Vancouver. You know, I went to basically art school, and
then I wanted to effectively, you know, become a film director or
something, you know, in that in that space. And they know what's
interesting is that, like I, I quickly realized that I was, you
know, more more interested in like technology. And so maybe that's
not that rebellious. But at that point in time, that's actually
what I was I cared about. And so I ended up switching from that
into, like, you know, learning about more about engineering, and
but I feel that this sort of combination of technology, and like
storytelling has been sort of like the through line, most of the
things I've been involved in. So I did that. I held on to a real
job for about two years after college, and then basically kind of
went out and like, you know, started my entrepreneurial journey. So
that's kind of how I got started, like, give me if I just skip
ahead, basically, yeah, started a company I started, few different
companies want to come that's I guess, if someone known, it's
called a company called Frank and oak was a fairly large e commerce
company, based out in Canada.
Law Smith 11:13
I see that Shopify store.
Ethan Song 11:16
Yeah, I mean, we grew a company, it's about 300 employees,
over over 30 stores, basically, it says a fairly large company, and
then, you know, I exited left a company a few years ago, and then
after that, I was doing a mix of like, just helping others, you
know, get started, and also doing some investment. And then, you
know, I kind of wanted to get back in the driver's seat in terms of
building companies. And I started my current company about a year
ago, which is really focused on, you know, supercharging
communities. And so that's kind of like the last 10 years of my
life, I'd say, I got to where I am today.
Law Smith 11:50
Is that rare circles or is that a different entity?
Ethan Song 11:54
Yeah, that's right. Circles. Exactly.
Law Smith 11:56
So what we don't have a lot of web three people come on here.
Can you explain what web three is? In a very dumb like, we're
Eric Readinger 12:04
five? Not? Five,
Law Smith 12:07
I see a lot of people promoting it. I see. You know, it seems
to be the next CrossFit thing on LinkedIn. You know,
Eric Readinger 12:14
I see NF t's on it. That's about all I can read. But
yeah,
Law Smith 12:18
can you talk to our audience pretty much us like we're fine.
Yeah. Cuz I think a lot of people want don't want to ask these
questions they do. Everybody wants to assume they know what it is.
Because you see so much of starting to pound you on
Ethan Song 12:32
social. I mean, I see a lot of people were like, you know, you
hear these buzzwords, and you just start using themselves until you
realize you actually don't know what it actually means. Right? I
look, I think, I think what three is a very broad words, I'm not
sure I think you'd ask like 10 people that a lot of different
definitions. But you know, it really comes from the aspect of like,
web one, web 2.0. And then web three. So web one being like, you
know, the early kind of, and it kind of goes in tenure phases, I
would say, to kind of web one being like, you know, simply, you
basically get to read meaning like, you know, you get to read
content, you get to like use Google search, you get to buy on
Amazon, which is basically a web one. So it's a very centralized,
you know, perspective, web 2.0, which is I think what most people
understand and live in, you know, obviously, social media was a big
part of that. But also the idea of like blogging, the idea of like,
being a creator of making money on YouTube, you guys, very web
to
Law Smith 13:30
you. Yeah, nice. I think
Ethan Song 13:32
all of that is like, and that is really around like, user
generated content, you know, in a broader sense of things. That's
what web 2.0 was, and this new era of web three, is, is around, you
know, the idea of like ownership. And that's what it was a broad
term is now what does that include? Typically, I would say web
three includes everything that's blockchain related. Now, you know,
the big question I guess you guys could ask is like, okay, is
Western crypto the same thing?
Law Smith 14:02
It will do Kryptos or the I'll just go from Bitcoin because
that's the easiest kind of example to teach is like, It's
decentralized. You know, it's a decentralized currency. Right? So
it's not it can't be owned by any one entity, essentially. Right?
And the more it gets into Word, my depth gets out of range is when
someone's like, well isn't like a mathematical kind of proposition
that you can't there's no solve for it. And that's how it became
that's how it stays decentralized almost. Does that make
sense?
Eric Readinger 14:35
Yeah, doing some kind of either probably knows,
Ethan Song 14:39
I mean, as simple as really thinking about it. Look, is the
fact that like crypto comes from cryptocurrencies, right, so
Bitcoin being obviously the most well known one and the first one
really relates to currencies right and currencies being like US
Dollars or Bitcoin something you can trade something that has
monetary value. And I think that PISA People misunderstand is that
the cryptocurrency is built on top of the blockchain, which is the
technology. And so if you want to think about what web three is, is
basically applying blockchain technology to things outside of
finance. And so that's why like you hear about, you know,
collectibles, right. So like that, like you talked about NF T's in
the beginning being web three, because collectibles are more about
IP. Now, you know, people are talking about using web three for
ticketing. So in that case, it's applying that technology to access
like digital access. And so I think why a lot of people are excited
about this technology is basically the application of web three to
or blockchain technologies to other purposes other than financial
person. So the way I see people think that it's the new internet, I
see it more as like an evolution of what we have today. Kind of
like how when mobile came about when the iPhone came about, in, I
think it was oh nine or 2010. And it kind of changed the way we use
the internet. But we were still kind of doing the same stuff,
right? Ordering stuff, getting food delivery, getting like, you
know, Uber, but it was a revolution, because it changed the way
people consume the internet. I think web three has the potential to
do that. But you know, I would say we're still in the early early
innings of that transformation.
Law Smith 16:21
Yeah. So I was consulting with a guy who wanted to have a gym
that was like, it was very ambitious. He, he called me up. He was
like, Can you consult for this? I have this gym ideas in Austin,
where it would be kind of web three based. Were the people that
invest in it were the shareholders. And I was like, this doesn't
sound like anything new to me. But he had his own kind of currency
to go with it. And I was like this. I think you're getting over
your skis and getting out too far.
Eric Readinger 16:52
I think right? Are you starting to gym or making your own
currency?
Law Smith 16:55
It was both and he I go, we're not talking like Dave and
Busters. I go look, you want me to help you with the marketing side
of it? I need to explain the message. I don't know. I don't really
know how to explain this. If you can't explain it to me, and I like
I'll be your your Cyrano, to your crowd of swords. But like, I
still don't get what this is right. Because you have your Yeah,
Cyrano. Remember, the guy the big nose? tells the other guy. So you
could hit on the chick in the balcony? You know, I'm talking about
Ethan knows. Eric shaking his head. He's not very cultured. He's
just sad about Dave and Busters a guy.
Eric Readinger 17:30
But are we going to David bucks or not?
Law Smith 17:32
Buster killed himself, dude. Yeah,
Ethan Song 17:34
I like the buses. But I agree. On your point. Actually, I
think it makes a really good point. I feel like we're still in the
stage where, you know, there's a lot of hobbyists are like doing
the technology just for the technology. And like, it doesn't serve
a real purpose.
Law Smith 17:48
It's very late nineties.com era where you have all the shit
like, it was almost the exact, almost exact same parallel was like
that, where all these dot coms went bust because they go, here's
all the shares of it. And you guys are investors, you're you have
private equity in this. And you can and then they IPO and then they
boom, bust. pets.com is always the go to example on that. But like
it felt it's funny how this stuff is cyclical in a very short
truncated kind of historical timeline. There's no question,
but
Eric Readinger 18:25
no, it seems like it's a like an authentication, like is
really the best thing that is paving the
Ethan Song 18:31
way you have to see it right, is that I think the web three
itself is not the purpose. Right? So the blockchain does nothing on
its own, like that is not the utility, right? So in the sense that
like, an internet connection, without great content, or payments,
or whatever you could do on it does not do anything. So I think
that we're still in that phase, I would say like, if you were to
compare it to.com, we're actually earlier and dotcom I'd say we
probably 9697. Right. And in terms of just adoption curves, I think
we're still very early. Now the counter argument I would say is
that the if the technology gets adopted, and if it becomes
extremely useful, while there's opportunities for people to build
companies of the size of Amazon and Google, in this stage, so I
think that's where there's a lot of interest in the space. But I
tend to agree with you that as entrepreneur as an intrapreneur, in
this space, I think part of the problem is that people are too
focused on like just making money, they monetization, right? And
then becomes like a giant Casino. And I don't think that's a good
behavior, because you're not adding value to real users. And you're
kind of like playing to the worst of people's, you know, kind of
like values versus like actually creating real value. And so I tend
to agree with some of the assessment you have. But the only caveat
I would make is that I do think that technology is important. I
think we're really
Law Smith 19:52
so what are the solutions like you started off in the episode
explaining this as, you know, kind of developing communities I may
I may be paraphrasing. But to that, remember that word? How do you?
So how does this How does rear circles help communities kind of
evolve? Like, let's say we want to get a community for our
podcasts, which I've been putting off for five years. And I'm like,
I should start a Facebook group, just throw everybody in there. And
then I go back and forth. And I him and home like, well, we should
have a Slack group really, that, you know, one of they could mirror
each other if we're just putting a daily post in there or something
like that. And then I overthink it, and then I don't
Eric Readinger 20:34
do it, and the solution is nothing. Nothing.
Law Smith 20:37
You know, we want to add value to the show as a supplemental
thing to this show to create kind of engagement because what we're
lacking on the shows we have good listenership we don't have
like,
Eric Readinger 20:47
we talked about shooting stuff out of our who has all the
time, and then we can't share it with people. And you know,
Law Smith 20:52
hey, we're not the number one business pod business comedy
podcast for just business. Okay, sometimes you got to talk about
the weird, the weird, fringy kind of thing. Yeah, it's very
fringe.
Unknown Speaker 21:03
Cool.
Ethan Song 21:05
Yeah. So I would say I mean, the simple way to answer your
question is that, you know, we, we offer a product that's basically
like a community portal, you know, that has some features that like
a Slack or facebook group would have, the nuance is that you can
add a layer of NF T's. And you can do two things with the NF TS
one, the user that has entities so you can lock right gate,
basically the content that's behind. And you can have different
tiers of access for a variety of different users, you could reward
some of your best users with freebies, or you could, you know, make
people pay, right, like an annual subscription to get those access
to your content. Within that portal, you guys can basically host
content, or you could, you know, reward your users for being
engaged users. So that's kind of like at a very high level, the
product that we offer is now you may say, what, what is the
difference between that and using Facebook group or slack? I would
say the answer is there's two different set of answers. I think, as
it relates to Facebook, I think what we're seeing is definitely a
trend towards people wanting to have private communities versus
like sitting on these big platforms where they don't control the
algorithms, we both feel like they're being taken advantage in
terms of data. So that's one. But the second piece, I think, is
really around the fact that, you know, Slack and subscription
models work in a lot of instances, but they don't work in terms of
rewarding your best users or your best listeners. And so the the
web three component to me, I think adds a touch of like, loyalty,
reward and retention, which I think is new to this space. And but I
do think that like the caveat there is it's it's an enhanced
experience by the community. So your community, you know, I mean,
you guys have built this amazing community, and so your community,
and with this enhanced experience, hopefully, what can happen, they
can be more engaged, they can feel more rewarded. They can make you
guys can maybe identify superfans, right, that are like key to your
community. Those are things that I think you can't do right now
without the web through technology. So that's sort of how our
product and our mindset comes into play. So
Law Smith 23:12
kind of like a twitch system of having your own kind of reward
reward, kind of, yeah, I don't know how to explain it really. I
have to find a dumb guy metaphor for every
Ethan Song 23:25
one of you guys have been on Reddit. And you know, read Reddit
now has a layer of web three to the system but interesting, the
rewards points, the avatars like all of that are effectively you
know, now core to the Reddit ecosystem and it's basically a
community incentives know that yeah, if I were to shorten it, I
feel like that's the way I would describe it. Now
Law Smith 23:48
Eric just goes on Reddit for this Q anon kind of group stuff
that's yeah, that's what he loves. We'll look you guys don't want
you guys are getting this shirt and a lot of Dude we're two days
away from yells day didn't have meetings. It's January 6, and a
couple of days man say that.
Eric Readinger 24:05
Don't say that. What you guys you're calling the web now what
we're talking me
Law Smith 24:09
offline about mobilizing. And I don't know who Q is don't
do
Eric Readinger 24:14
politically. You know, you talk about hemorrhoids or whatever.
Say political anything. Got Ethan. Record? I feel like I should say
that he's full of shit. I don't know. If I didn't if I clear
Law Smith 24:27
said like a true conspiracy guy. Ethan, I'm sorry. I cut you
off.
Eric Readinger 24:30
Everything's off. Ethan's off the line. He's
Law Smith 24:33
not even here. We got him to laugh for a half second. He was
like Is this why did i Why did I do this show?
Eric Readinger 24:38
I will say I'm amazed how often you'll ask a question and
you'll talk for three minutes. We have a back and forth a whole
field and the guests. They all they remember the question. Yeah,
no, my mind either was answering a question that happened three
minutes ago and I was like, Oh, that's right. There was a question
there.
Law Smith 24:58
Either go on Sorry.
Eric Readinger 25:01
I do we have a question.
Ethan Song 25:03
I don't know. Yeah. What's the question?
Law Smith 25:05
What that is like a marriage counselor for two minutes is
never gonna work. I guess my thing is, you know, Rhett, you were
talking about Reddit and how they started infusing this. If we're
okay, let's, let's go this way. Let's go back to the, the example
for anybody listening that wants to get a community started. I see
the get started button on rare, rare circles.com. How would I start
getting the word out to use this platform? How does one get
going?
Ethan Song 25:37
Yeah, I mean, amazing for us is that like, our product is not
a distribution product, meaning like, you know, because what we're
seeing is that most people are building their communities on
Twitter, right? Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. And so there's
already all these great distribution products really are products.
But what you can use it for is effectively invite your users,
whichever platform you are on, right to join. You can either offer
free access, or you can you know, have more of a gated and have
them pay. If you want to use that as a monetization for your
content, and then effectively use a platform to engage them. I
would say that's the simplest way for you to do that. And so you
just go on the website and basically you get started.
Eric Readinger 26:18
blows my mind how digital I mean, really, when you think about
it, but like the you know, if you play a game like you're making
fun of me yesterday for playing Words with Friends.
Law Smith 26:28
Yeah, thank you. Whatever shit Scrabble.
Eric Readinger 26:32
You still lost the regular scrabble yesterday?
Law Smith 26:34
Um, three and one against you owe me three. Yeah,
Eric Readinger 26:37
those were very close games. I destroyed you yesterday.
Law Smith 26:39
I'll fuck you up in Scrabble. We're gonna play. Okay, fine.
triple lock, bitch.
Eric Readinger 26:45
Oh, the, the, the way that people still like they know that
you're just getting a little coin on a thing. That means nothing.
Yet there's value to it to some people. And it's what we're
Law Smith 26:57
I think we're in an age where tangible doesn't feel if it's
intangible. It doesn't feel real. Right.
Eric Readinger 27:03
But I don't know, I feel like it doesn't have to be any words,
your money tangible how that's
Law Smith 27:08
saying your cash. This is how our parents probably felt about
the gold standard. Right? So it's like, right, you go off with
something. They're like, well, gold's never going away. And you're
like, wow,
Eric Readinger 27:16
it's about an agreement, where, you know, we all agree that
this paper is worth money. And, you know, if you give it to
somebody else, they agree with the same thing. And it's the same
with you know, all that digital stuff. Everybody on your community
agrees is valuable. Guess what's valuable? Just blows my
mind.
Law Smith 27:34
Yeah. I NFT world's interesting, I don't know how you keep it
unique when you have something that's intangible like that. But I'm
sure that's part of the blockchain technology, that it's the
backing of all of that. Is that kind of fair to say?
Ethan Song 27:49
Well, that's why I think I think all that stuff, you guys are
talking about really relevant to cryptocurrencies, where in
decades, it's really like supply and demand, you know, if there's
demand for it, it's valuable. If there's no demand for it, then
it's worth nothing. And I tend to agree for that. I don't I'm too
I'm to be honest, not that knowledgeable on the finance and defi
side, because our focus is really on community, I would I would say
is that when people think about crypto, there's really two things
they need to know is that there is the currencies, but there's also
the technology. And I think, what's what we're gonna see in the
next three to five years, I think that technology is going to
really change the way people consume the internet. And they may not
even know it, they may not even realize that it's behind the
scenes. Whereas I do think that crypto itself, you know, I think in
some instances has value, but it's going to stay more prime more
niche, right. Like, like you separate community people that have
true believers that that are using.
Eric Readinger 28:43
Where do you see? Oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, go ahead. Yeah.
Well, I was gonna ask where you think the blockchain technology is
going to be used that maybe we're not thinking about, like,
somewhere where I don't know, I? My thing? I think of driver's
licenses, because like, I know that, like certain states, you can
have your license on your phone now. Yeah. Would that apply? Is it?
I don't know.
Ethan Song 29:07
I mean, that applies. There were discussions, you know, during
during COVID, where some people were saying maybe we can use
blockchain to validate the vaccine passports, right. Governments
were issuing so I do think that we're gonna see basically, some
companies, governments, you know, I think the main thing you're
gonna see it actually, to your point that you mentioned, is I do
think we're gonna see a trend, a likely around tokenizing real
world assets. Right? Right. Right. Meaning like, you and I can
trade something. But what we're trading is a right to something in
the real world and our real world could be a pair of like, you
know, Jordan sneakers, right. And it could be it could be a US
dollar or it could be
Eric Readinger 29:52
any other time I'd have Jordan Yeah, exactly.
Law Smith 29:55
What like my thing with what you're doing though, it It seems
like you're separating the cryptocurrency with what what the
community aspect of this is. But if there is a reward system that
has its own kind of casino, like coins, or rewards or incentives,
isn't that kind of just a side move from cryptocurrency? Or is that
really dumb? You know, I'm saying, like, isn't it just another
another form? Like, if I go to the casino, I gotta go get chips.
That's the that's the way they do it. They're right, you can't you
can't play unless you have the chips. Now, I guess the way your
communities might be built off of is you can join for free, it's
probably like a freemium thing, like you're giving away as the
community admin giving away maybe rewards, instead of them having
to buy into the community, or is that part of the aspect of the
users of the community where they go, hey, I want to put something
into this to get something out. For instance, we were on Twitch for
a local radio guy, kind of like he was huge in the 90s. And then,
we didn't know he was still big with Bubba the love sponge. But we
were we went on a show to get made fun of for an hour, and we
didn't realize how big his community was on Twitch. And he has all
these different incentives to be like, almost like political
campaign thing. Or you could be you could be the top Bubba lover,
you know, whatever it is. And then they had all these coins that if
you threw coins into the chat, while it's live, they would say your
name on air, and things of that nature. I don't they had to buy
that subscription. Is that kind of? Can you set something out up
like that? Or is it like, hey, we start a group, and we're just
gonna give away kind of like, whatever our RV content, casino
coins.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai/referrals/AVPIT85N