0:01

The. Best way to predict the future is to go build

0:03

it. The reason

0:05

why I like to be about three and

0:07

block chain is because the smartest people in

0:09

the world are in the space and working

0:11

on building cool things. That technologies eventually going

0:13

to disrupt existing industry is that we know

0:15

and going to solve problems around us. You

0:17

told me the other night he said look,

0:19

I'm not a traitor, I'm an investor. Tell

0:21

me what that means and tell me. the

0:24

way that you engage in the market trading

0:26

is that one of the easiest way to

0:28

get rammed. I invest in a business early

0:30

are and that business creates value. And

0:32

that creates wealth. In trading is player was

0:34

display. Are you taking money from somebody else?

0:36

So there's no wealth recreate? The

0:39

bull market is back. You've seen a few

0:41

cycles. You're pretty much oh gee in the

0:44

space. What do you think is hot? What's

0:46

happening? Because adoption is growing. There's more and

0:48

more people understanding why we need Bitcoin. It

0:50

takes away the central power with his some

0:53

individuals aside how the power distributed and give

0:55

them back to the people when that headline

0:57

goes around the world that it's an all

0:59

time high and Bitcoin where people. Going to

1:01

be like oh that's that crypto stuff and

1:03

the ones from talking about Now it's back.

1:05

Can't stop technical progress. It will eventually come

1:07

to better solution will eventually when. And bitcoin

1:09

is just a better form of money. My

1:14

mother doesn't understand technology that what at all, but

1:16

she's always had these basic quite a while. Living

1:18

life is like always. think long term, always think

1:20

about how you can add value for others. Always

1:22

give more than you take. I wanted to say

1:24

it like are full time job is to pray.

1:28

Final thoughts for anybody listening out there are

1:30

like do you people would have been easy

1:32

and zebra enthusiasm going to be enthusiastic about

1:34

what you do wish in the bigger you

1:37

dream the big better it is a was

1:39

is always ask ask for things you want

1:41

because you don't ask you know get and

1:43

then and. Is nimble moving fast and delivering

1:45

results because you know that you believe some.

1:47

There's an advantage of the world. For

1:50

me, freedom of them, one pride in life, and

1:53

I value that about most things in life. and

1:55

if I can give that to somebody else, I

1:57

think that would truly. new legendary The

2:09

world is changing. Inspiration

2:13

is everywhere. It

2:18

has never been so easy to connect, share,

2:21

and bring people together. We're

2:25

learning from others and finding

2:27

the best in ourselves. Challenging

2:33

our beliefs. Sharing

2:36

our vulnerability. Overcoming

2:40

our fears. Challenging

2:45

ourselves so we

2:47

can transform the world. How

2:51

far do we go? This

2:54

is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is...

3:05

This is London Real. I am Brian

3:07

Rose. My guest today is Evan Luthra,

3:10

the serial entrepreneur, blockchain expert, investor, and

3:12

motivational speaker. Your journey

3:14

began at age 12 when you began writing

3:16

a technology blog and then developed an app

3:18

that helped you reach millions of readers. You

3:21

sold your first business for $1.7 million at 17

3:23

years old and made the Forbes 30 Under

3:26

30 list at the age of 27. You

3:29

first discovered Bitcoin back in 2014 and

3:31

from there began investing heavily in the

3:33

blockchain space. Today, you've

3:35

built and invested in over 400 companies

3:37

with a combined market cap in excess of $100

3:40

billion. You

3:42

are a member of the Forbes

3:44

Technology Council and regularly contribute to

3:46

Forbes magazine, Entrepreneur, and Cointelegraph. Ultimately,

3:49

you believe that Web 3 has the

3:51

power to transform the lives of millions

3:53

of people around the world and that

3:55

Bitcoin represents the biggest wealth transfer in

3:57

generations. Evan, welcome to Web 3.

3:59

Thank you, Brian. Pleasure to be here

4:01

today. It's great to have you here. You

4:04

know what? I think we jump right into

4:06

it because the bull market is back. And

4:08

I want to just jump into your brain

4:10

and find out what is Evan thinking about

4:13

what the next 12 to 18 months

4:15

holds for us. What do

4:17

you think is hot? What's happening? And I

4:19

think what everyone wants to know is what

4:21

are you investing in? You've seen a few

4:23

cycles. You're pretty much OG in this space.

4:25

So what do you see coming up? I

4:28

mean, for me, it's very, very exciting to see what's

4:30

happening in the crypto markets right now. We all knew

4:32

this was going to happen, right? All these last cycles

4:34

that we've got. This is my third bull cycle, as

4:37

you would say, that I'm properly involved in. And what

4:39

was happening is basically Bitcoin's adoption

4:41

is growing. There's more and more

4:44

people understanding what's happening with Bitcoin, why we need

4:46

Bitcoin, and why we need to take power away

4:48

from the governments and from the banks. And I

4:50

think that's what's really happening. What

4:52

happened during the last cycle was, you know, at first the

4:54

big banks used to say Bitcoin is a fraud, Bitcoin is

4:57

a scam. They realized they can't

4:59

stop. Most people eventually realize that you

5:01

can only delay technical progress. You can't

5:03

stop technical progress. It will eventually come.

5:05

The better solution will eventually win. And

5:07

Bitcoin is just a better form of

5:09

money. Right. And that's why I

5:11

think it's able to get all these adoption. And now with

5:13

ETFs, we're seeing over 10 times

5:15

more demand for Bitcoin every day than Bitcoin

5:18

has actually created. There's more than 10 X

5:20

the demand for Bitcoin every single day just

5:22

from the ETFs than Bitcoin actually being created.

5:24

And that's been the draft ever since the

5:26

ETFs have gone live. And it's

5:28

been a really, really exciting time. I mean, do most

5:31

people actually tell them you need to understand if you want

5:33

to understand Bitcoin, you have to ask why do you need

5:35

banks? Why do you need governments? And to

5:37

really understand that you have to go back a

5:40

few few centuries in time and

5:42

you have to understand you need banks and governments to

5:44

enable trade in different parts of the world. Something from

5:46

the UK wants to do something with business, somebody from

5:48

India. That's what banks

5:50

and governments enabled. They enabled the trade to take place

5:53

in a matter that was trusted between both parties.

5:56

But what's happened over the many years is that

5:58

these banks and governments have become... quite corrupt.

6:00

So now they serve their own friends.

6:03

They don't really serve the public anymore. They're not

6:05

a public servant as they're supposed to be. And

6:08

I think that's what Bitcoin is truly solving, right? Today,

6:10

if I want to get a loan, I can walk

6:12

into any bank and get a loan in a minute.

6:14

But my chef, my driver who actually needs a loan,

6:17

which will have a lot more impact for them than to

6:19

me, they can't get a loan. They

6:21

can't get that because they don't know the bank

6:24

manager, right? I mean, and that's what's problem in

6:26

politics and government and banking today. And I think

6:28

that's what Bitcoin saw that takes away the central

6:30

power, where there's some individuals decide how the power

6:33

is distributed and gives it back

6:35

to the people. With Bitcoin, you're decentralizing

6:37

governance, you're decentralizing power. I think that's

6:39

really, really exciting. And what

6:42

happened over what happens every cycle is

6:44

that we see adoption coming in, right?

6:47

Bitcoin works in cycles because of the way

6:49

it's been designed. There's this halving that happens

6:51

every four years that cuts the supply of

6:53

Bitcoin for the same amount of effort that

6:56

goes in by half. And as

6:58

we reach every half halving, it

7:00

attracts a lot of people to the Bitcoin

7:02

ecosystem. And we see the growth coming in.

7:04

I think that's what is really happening now

7:06

that the adoption is really reaching the tipping

7:09

point. I think this may be the biggest

7:12

super cycle in a way where Bitcoin reaches

7:14

everybody to at least a big part of

7:16

the world. We're already seeing massive amounts

7:18

of people in places like

7:20

Venezuela, Turkey, the Eastern Europe,

7:22

where there's either war or

7:24

instability, vertical instability, or

7:26

there's high amounts of inflation already. Like 50%

7:29

of people almost using cryptocurrencies all the time.

7:31

I tell you people like all the time,

7:34

people from Argentina or Turkey, where

7:36

they are even Malaysia, I was talking to a friend

7:38

just a couple of days ago, the Malaysian ring, it

7:41

has fallen like, oh, 50% against the US dollar in

7:43

the last many years. So people

7:45

are losing their purchasing power. America

7:47

keeps on printing more and more US dollars, which

7:49

is backed by nothing but the trust in the

7:51

army. And then they start, they keep

7:53

exporting that inflation because the world still runs in the

7:55

US dollar. Right? So they create

7:58

that inflation and they export that inflation. to

8:00

other countries and these countries are suffering. These countries

8:02

are suffering in a really big way. I think

8:04

Bitcoin takes away that power from

8:06

these institutions and gives it back to

8:08

the people. One Bitcoin is always

8:11

one Bitcoin and what you can get with

8:13

that one Bitcoin is going up over history

8:15

and it's not going down compared to what

8:17

you get when you have a fiat currencies.

8:20

Over time, there's not a single fiat currency

8:22

that has actually survived, right? Not one single

8:24

fiat currency has actually survived. We

8:27

don't know if Bitcoin will

8:29

survive. One thing I tend to

8:31

tell people is they underestimate technology. Technology grows

8:33

really, really fast. It grows exponentially so we

8:35

may have a better form of money. But

8:37

as of today, we don't have

8:39

anything better than Bitcoin, right? I think it's the smartest

8:41

form of money out there, the best for the store

8:44

value. It's easy to transport.

8:46

It's secure. Nobody can take it

8:48

from you and I think that's the best to look at

8:50

it. Is this more of getting

8:52

people's attention to a certain extent? Because it

8:54

feels like every cycle more and more people

8:56

hear about Bitcoin and then they always have

8:58

to learn about it because sometimes it's complicated

9:00

to own. The ETF changes that. But once

9:02

they get it, I guess they call it

9:04

orange peeling someone, a lot of people then

9:06

go into it. But again, it's hard to

9:09

get people's attention. Now we're close to the

9:11

all time high. I was telling my students

9:13

yesterday when that headline goes around the world

9:15

that it's an all time high in Bitcoin,

9:17

that is a huge pattern

9:19

interrupts, right? Marsh McLuhan called about call, talked

9:21

about that, a pattern interrupt where people are

9:23

going to be like, oh, that's that crypto

9:25

stuff everyone's been talking about. Now it's back.

9:28

And that would get a lot of people's

9:30

attention. And you're saying that might be the

9:32

final push. Exactly. Everyone knows. Like you said,

9:34

because it's easier to access Bitcoin now and

9:36

also technology is growing, right? So we needed

9:38

that we didn't have the infrastructure for a

9:40

long time in the web three space for

9:42

people to actually be onboarded. You can't expect

9:44

my mother to go and

9:46

download a MetaMask, create a wallet, save

9:49

a private key, preserve that in a safe way. You

9:51

can't expect a lot of people to do that. So

9:54

we are now seeing these tools that have come

9:56

in where now you have phones that are basically

9:58

crypto phones. So you are crypto

10:00

is becoming so much a part of life

10:02

for a lot of people that it becomes

10:04

very easy and I think that's what technology

10:06

is doing and the infrastructure as we say

10:08

is being built is that a

10:11

place where a lot more people can be

10:13

onboarded and those who actually have interest

10:15

can be onboarded at this point with infrastructure that's

10:17

available today and Gamefire for example which is the

10:19

biggest narrative that might invest in over 150 web

10:21

3 games and has been one of the

10:25

most exciting ways to onboard people because if you

10:27

look at what happened with gaming right the

10:30

ecosystem was always locked right you would have

10:32

this big game publishers publish a game players

10:35

would spend hours and hours playing earning these skins in

10:37

which they pay the publisher for and then they leave

10:39

the game the skins are there you know they can't

10:41

do anything with it but with the weapons are there

10:44

whatever they earn in the game the in-game assets but

10:46

now with NFTs and web 3 these assets become tradable

10:49

but an individual is still playing the game because he

10:51

wants to enjoy the game like he would play any

10:53

other way but now what the time he spends into

10:55

the game he can earn these assets and he can

10:57

sell them at the end of the game and that

11:00

creates an economy that gives a financial incentive around that

11:02

when you do that it opens

11:04

up a lot more adoption right and I think

11:06

that's just one of the examples of how

11:08

like Gamefire is bringing a big adoption to

11:10

crypto and web 3 I'd like to

11:12

say like the children who are gonna be born

11:15

now who are gonna be playing iPad games you're

11:17

already already for the last many years killer will

11:19

be born a born with iPads in their hand

11:21

they play iPads all day that's how parents keep

11:23

the kids entertained these days but the people gonna

11:25

be born now who are gonna play these next

11:27

games are going to be web 3 games they're

11:29

not just playing games they're actually making money but

11:31

they're actually earning in-game assets learning about finance

11:34

for a very young age they're learning about

11:36

Bitcoin for a very young age because eventually

11:38

you buy on that game token you

11:41

say this is interesting and then you look at you get

11:43

more you get you get more you get more interested you

11:45

look for more into it I think that's what is going

11:47

to happen at a very big pace and they're just one

11:49

of the industries this adoption happening in

11:51

every other industry as we know a lot

11:54

of point systems like the world runs on that's

11:56

all been coming to web 3 I was just

11:58

talking to the head of airball take, one of

12:00

the airlines, I travel a lot, I've been crazy about

12:02

collecting miles and optimizing my travel.

12:05

And then this guy is just, and I have all

12:08

these miles which I expire now, because I'm at a

12:10

point now where I don't spend

12:12

so much time optimizing that I used to when I was

12:14

younger, so I don't use so many of these points, and

12:16

they expire, right? But now Air Baltic is

12:18

working in a system where you can actually sell those points, you

12:21

can NFT them and you make an whole economy around

12:24

that. So that's like value that I can, that was

12:26

sitting there but I couldn't use now, I can extract

12:28

that value using Web3. So I

12:30

think there's a lot of adoption happening and there's

12:32

a lot of companies coming in, and

12:35

this happened even before. So it's not like

12:37

it didn't happen before. Microsoft was

12:39

like selling stuff, Tesla was selling with Bitcoin,

12:41

even the last bull market. What

12:43

happened was, the infrastructure was not

12:45

able to support it, the transaction fees

12:47

were too high, the storage, there was,

12:50

the infrastructure was not there. But

12:52

that's what people are doing every day. The

12:54

reason why I like to be in Web3

12:56

and blockchain is because the smartest people in

12:58

the world are in this space and

13:00

working on building cool things. I

13:02

don't work for money anymore, I like to work because I enjoy doing

13:05

it, that's the only type of work I do, right? And

13:07

in Web3 you get to work with the

13:09

smartest people in this industry, that's really exciting.

13:11

And you can never discount the hard work

13:14

of smart people. So eventually

13:16

you see this adoption happening where now

13:18

the infrastructure layer, the foundation

13:20

is strong and people can

13:22

actually build tools, people can actually build

13:25

Web3 solutions and they can actually tokenize

13:27

the economy or the company or the

13:29

industry and have massive growth. And

13:32

now we are, for example, security tokens. I

13:34

was actually early into one of the first security

13:36

token offerings, high dot tech back in 2018. This

13:40

company did really, really well, they raised a lot of money, but

13:42

it was a security token. Even till

13:44

today, there's not really that many places we can trade

13:46

a security token. But now this year

13:48

a big narrative is real world assets. Tokenizing

13:51

real world assets is basically a security, right?

13:54

You're buying a property and you take tokenizing

13:56

that and then you bring all this liquidity

13:58

on chain. So that's like,

14:00

realistically, is a trillion, multi-trillion dollar

14:03

asset. When that comes on chain

14:05

on crypto, there's huge amounts of

14:07

growth that's going to be coming into the space. And

14:09

that's just one of the examples. But

14:11

the infrastructure didn't exist. People had

14:13

ideas to tokenize property in the last bull cycle

14:16

also. But there was no infrastructure. You couldn't do

14:18

it. Now you actually have the infrastructure, and that's

14:20

why I think this is one of

14:22

the super cycles where we're going to see massive growth. I

14:25

think it's what crypto has been the

14:27

largest wealth transfer in generations, as we all

14:29

know. But I think this is

14:31

the time that we're still very early. We're still not

14:34

close to the all-time high. We're still not broken

14:36

to all-time high. So people watching this, I think

14:38

they have the opportunity that they're still very early

14:41

and they can still get in. And still,

14:43

I like to even tell people, when you get

14:45

into crypto, don't come in with the mindset like,

14:47

I have this $1,000. I have this $10,000. How

14:50

do I make that into $100,000? Or how do I make that into a million?

14:53

That's the wrong mindset, right? Forget what you have.

14:56

Think out of the box and say, I'm this

14:58

individual. I want to understand what

15:00

Bitcoin is. I want to understand Web3. I want to understand

15:02

what tokenization is. I want to understand

15:04

how it works and how can I add value. I'm

15:07

passionate about fashion. I'm passionate about hospitality.

15:09

How can I use Web3 to disrupt

15:12

this industry? And you

15:14

will find people with similar ideas and

15:16

similar passions already working on cool products,

15:18

join the Telegram community, share

15:21

ideas, become a community moderator.

15:23

People adding value and you will win for

15:25

sure. One

15:28

of the quickest, easiest ways to win this

15:30

industry is just chase airdrops. I like to

15:32

say, if you're able to spend 20 hours

15:34

a week this year chasing airdrops, completing challenges,

15:36

you will probably make anywhere from $200 to

15:38

$2 million in free money just by

15:42

investing time. Maybe you

15:45

have to invest $500 in gas fees over the

15:47

whole year. For people that don't know what that

15:49

means, what does that mean chasing airdrops and what

15:51

does someone have to do to get those? Telling

15:53

airdrops is all these new companies building protocols, building

15:55

solutions. They want people to know about that and

15:58

they have these tokens which investors like myself. They

16:00

normally sell 20% of those tokens for like, let's

16:02

say two million, just to give you high level

16:04

numbers, and they keep the other 20% to

16:07

distribute to the community, right? And let's

16:09

say they distribute two million dollars worth of

16:11

tokens to the early adopters who use their

16:13

product. And then- If you're on

16:15

the website, they're gonna give you credit for

16:17

being there. They're gonna give you credit for

16:20

being early, for using the product and telling

16:22

your friends about it. And

16:24

there's hundreds of such products coming,

16:26

right? And if you spend time,

16:29

an hour chasing, you spend

16:31

20 hours or you chase 20 a drops a

16:33

week, you end the year with a thousand

16:35

airdrops, each of those airdrops, I've

16:39

had airdrops which have reached six figures in

16:41

volume, but I was obviously early,

16:43

so but that's the key. You can also be

16:45

early. All you should do is

16:47

just be curious and understand and spend

16:49

some time and you know, that's what

16:51

I said, find what you're passionate about and

16:54

join one of those telegram communities and find,

16:56

because technology is end of Bitcoin and blockchain

16:58

is just a distributed ledger technology. The

17:00

technology is eventually gonna disrupt existing

17:02

industries that we know and

17:04

they're gonna solve problems around us, right? So

17:07

if you can be in one of these

17:09

protocols, the projects that are solving a problem

17:11

that you care about, and if

17:13

you're an early adopter and you're early proponent, you

17:15

will get that airdrop and that airdrop would

17:17

be worth a lot of money. And I mean, this is

17:19

what a lot of people do right now. And this changes

17:22

lives of thousands of people that

17:24

I know that have changed lives just by chasing

17:26

airdrops. And this is normally a better strategy

17:28

than trying to come in with $10,000 and

17:31

think how can I make my 10,000 into a million? I

17:33

would rather recommend, give your time

17:36

instead and decide how can I add value to

17:38

this space. I love working with

17:40

crypto, because I mean, even before crypto, like I have

17:42

my own company, I tune in engineers who work full

17:44

time for me. The company's still there, I'm

17:46

not that deeply involved because I like to work in crypto. And

17:49

crypto is amazing because here, the more value

17:51

you create, the more you get. It's

17:54

purely a value centering economy. If

17:56

you're able to create value in web3, you

17:59

get paid for that. You'll get paid

18:01

sooner or later. You will get paid sooner or later.

18:03

It's like karma. It's like karma. It's like this industry,

18:05

I love that about it. It's purely about karma.

18:07

You are here adding value for others, you

18:09

will get value back. And it's not

18:12

like other places where, and in crypto, most

18:14

of my team which works with me, they

18:16

all get paid a cut for what I'm

18:18

making. It's not based on a salary, which

18:20

all my other employees in my VEP2 business

18:22

were. I would keep 99% of

18:24

the value generated. They would build the app. They

18:27

would build the solution, but they only make

18:29

that fixed salary a month. When

18:32

the app became really successful, I would get all of

18:34

that value. That's how VEP2 used to work. They

18:36

maybe have a little bit of ESOP, but that's not really

18:38

the same. But here, I'm talking like 30, 40, 50% of

18:40

what I make goes

18:42

back to my team. And

18:45

I'm happy you do that, and I make a lot more

18:47

this way, but I'm happy you do

18:49

that also because I'm winning. I

18:51

realize that. When you look

18:53

at just purely numbers, you're like, oh, you're paying too

18:55

much. When you do that in a while, you realize

18:57

that you're making way more than you would have if

18:59

this team was not actually with you, right? So

19:01

that's the, and crypto is purely like

19:04

that. This is the industry where

19:06

you add value, you get value back very quickly.

19:08

And I think that's very beautiful

19:10

about this space. And that's

19:12

why there's, like I said, the smartest people in the space

19:14

work here in the blockchain Web3. It's

19:17

so true, and I guess in the VEP2 world,

19:19

over time, if you added a ton of value,

19:21

you might get it back. But there were so

19:23

many frictions in the VEP2 space here with these

19:25

tokens that can literally move like lightning.

19:28

You'll find that if you're putting out good energy,

19:30

that sooner or later, they're gonna find their way

19:32

back to your wallet somehow. Exactly. If you put

19:35

in a good, it's

19:37

also all about collaboration versus competitiveness.

19:39

VEP2 and generally the world, most

19:42

industries are very competitive. They

19:44

compete with each other. How does Zara wanna

19:46

sell more than H&M? How does

19:48

this guy wanna get more than that? Like how do I compete?

19:51

How do I beat? How do a Ferrari sell more than Lamborghini,

19:53

right? In Web3, everybody works

19:55

together, who collaborate. I don't care,

19:57

like in hedge funds, they... They're

20:00

like, I want to get the best deal for myself. In

20:02

crypto, I share my best deals to the

20:04

people because they bring me the best deals

20:06

back. So it's like, it's very

20:09

collaborative society because you know everybody wins. The

20:11

community wins too, right? The community wins too, but

20:14

everybody wins and everybody's more happy. You also want

20:16

to be in a position where you have people

20:18

around you all winning. That's how you have more

20:20

success. When the people around

20:22

you all start winning and then they can enable people

20:24

around them to also win and then you're basically in

20:26

a winning circle. I think

20:29

in crypto, because it's so new in

20:31

a way, it's still barely, and we know it's

20:33

a disruptive technology. We know it's gonna have such

20:35

impact because it's finance. Finance runs the

20:37

world and we know it's gonna change

20:40

how the financial system is run. I

20:42

think it's gonna, but it's still very early. There's

20:44

still many people have to be touched by it.

20:47

So eventually the whole industry will grow. And if

20:49

you are in that industry adding value one way

20:51

or the other, you will just grow with the

20:53

industry as the industry grows. And that's

20:56

what has happened in WebT3. I know

20:58

more than 10 CEOs who have

21:01

started projects who all started as

21:03

community moderators. They started as

21:05

basically joining a community in crypto, became

21:07

a moderator where they would just help other people who would

21:09

join and how to get involved and what they can do

21:11

for that community. They realized, hey, this is a

21:13

problem I can fix by building

21:15

a company. And now they're doing super well. Many

21:18

of these companies have gone on to create 10s

21:20

of millions of dollars in value where

21:22

the founder was basically a community moderator, maybe less

21:24

than $1,000 a month when he started. So

21:26

that's the beautiful thing about crypto. When

21:29

you're there and you find that once

21:31

you understand WebT3, once you understand crypto,

21:34

you become already the special,

21:36

I mean, one to 10% of

21:38

the world who can actually explain it to other

21:40

people. Because a lot of people still don't understand.

21:43

A big downside about crypto is that most people don't

21:45

do their own research. They depend on other people to

21:47

tell them what to do. I think

21:49

that's just maybe human life. Most

21:52

people just look up to other people. That's

21:54

why in inferences like ourselves have so much

21:56

influence in this space. People look

21:58

up, I always tell people, do your own research. research, do

22:00

your own research, don't do what I do because

22:02

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm

22:04

learning with you, this industry grows so fast,

22:07

it changes every day, I don't know what

22:09

I'm doing sometimes. And it's

22:11

better to do your own research but most people still

22:13

don't do that. They don't do that. They'd

22:15

rather still ask me again or ask somebody else like what

22:17

should I buy, what should I do because

22:20

they don't have that self-confidence in a way. What

22:22

they don't know is that even the guys

22:25

at the top are literally building it right now.

22:27

They're still building the protocol, the development

22:29

is happening every day. Even

22:32

the difference is we are okay, we are nimble,

22:34

we can move fast and break things. It's okay

22:36

in crypto to break things. It's not a problem.

22:38

You can fail and you can start again, fail

22:40

again and you can start again and that's what

22:42

we have seen. So the biggest companies in

22:44

crypto have failed. FTX, Luda, and look

22:46

we have almost back to the all-time high. Probably

22:49

the next couple of weeks everybody who have bought Bitcoin will be

22:51

in profit. And that's after some of

22:53

the biggest companies in the world failing.

22:57

So that tells you a lot. I

22:59

think we're at like 4% global adoption or 5% which

23:01

is like 1998 in internet years. So

23:04

if you think about what was the internet doing in 98, were

23:07

people even on the internet in 98? Probably

23:09

barely. And you're thinking about okay that's how

23:11

much growth we have to go. For people

23:13

that are new, I think before you said

23:15

look starting off with Bitcoin is like a

23:18

no-brainer. Get some, maybe understand that Bitcoin. And

23:20

then from there you say you can broaden

23:22

out. Maybe look at a layer one, maybe

23:24

look at some defies. I think you're

23:26

a fan of exchange tokens because those always seem

23:28

to survive. Then you talk about gaming and AI.

23:31

Is that kind of a path that you recommend? Obviously

23:33

they should do their own research. But

23:35

is that a way to kind of look

23:37

at the ecosystem? So obviously tokenization generally is

23:39

what is happening here, right? And tokenization is

23:41

happening when you say you mention all these

23:43

different narratives, AI,

23:45

RWA, exchanges are great tokens because they have

23:48

a very strong utility, right? So

23:50

the more the utility a token has, the

23:52

more it has potential to grow. And that's

23:54

what you need to look into. And those are narratives that

23:57

crypto will have more impact on the certain

23:59

industry and less and pass another industry.

24:01

I like to tell people tokenization is

24:03

gonna change the world in

24:05

a big way because every business, every

24:08

ecosystem, every is gonna become a dollar, gonna

24:10

become tokenized. In a very simple way to

24:12

explain this is, right now I

24:15

ask you what's the best car to buy? What's

24:17

your favorite car, Brian? Oh,

24:19

like in general? Yeah. I actually don't love cars,

24:21

but I drive. I don't drive also, I just

24:23

use the exact, I've drive for 10 years. I

24:25

use the exact because most everybody loves cars. I

24:27

drove around in some guy's super car, I called

24:29

like a Jesco, some sweet, 10 million dollar super

24:31

car. I guess that was kinda cool. Okay, so

24:33

you would probably say a Rolls Royce or Bugatti.

24:35

I think that's a coin stack, Yeah,

24:37

yeah, that's it, coin stack, yeah, that's it. That one

24:39

is, I know the Jesco, but yeah. So, you will

24:41

say that, I would say maybe buy a Rolls Royce

24:43

if I don't drive, I like to be driven. But

24:47

this is right now in the current world. Let's

24:49

say Toyota and Honda come up with a

24:51

token. They already have shares, but they're

24:53

not accessible. You have to be a credit investor, or

24:56

only accessible to like less than 10% of the population

24:58

who can actually access shares in these companies. But

25:01

most people can't access, but let's say they come up with

25:03

a token, easily traded, but anybody

25:05

can have that, and then that token allows

25:07

you to have some sort of claim in

25:09

the business. For a business to be really

25:12

successful, there's three stakeholders involved. There's the user

25:14

of the business, the manager of the

25:16

business, and the owner of the business. Right now,

25:18

everybody wants different things. They all want,

25:20

the user wants to get the cheapest product, the best

25:22

product, the owner wants to make the most money, and

25:24

the manager wants to basically keep everybody happy and make

25:27

the business grow. But the incentive's

25:29

not aligned. With a token, you

25:31

make the user a part owner and a

25:33

part manager, and you align the incentives. When

25:36

you, let's say Honda and Toyota come up with a

25:38

token, and you get the Honda token, I get the

25:40

Toyota token, and next time somebody asks

25:42

us to buy, and if we

25:44

recommend Toyota, we get a sliver of revenue

25:46

that Toyota makes, I'm gonna say buy a

25:48

Toyota. You're gonna say buy a Honda,

25:50

because you're a part owner. Even if one person owns

25:53

a buying, maybe you get a few pennies in your

25:55

inbox, right? So that's the difference, you make a part

25:57

owner. Let's say the next step from that is,

26:00

you're already seeing with DOWs. I heard about this in end

26:02

of 2022, where I think it's gonna be

26:04

the year of DOWs, and we're only just seeing now a lot

26:06

of progress. What happens

26:08

is like, now if Honda and Toyota make 10

26:10

billion, let's say in the year, the

26:13

board decides where that 10 billion is invested. Maybe

26:16

that board is not in the right mindset, right? Maybe

26:18

they don't have the exposure what the people actually want,

26:20

but as a token holder, you can actually vote. I

26:23

want you to build a yacht and invest in a new yacht

26:25

because I like to be on the water. Maybe

26:27

you say you invest in a new plane because you like

26:29

to fly. You want to have more efficient flying. So instead

26:32

of the company deciding, now the user actually has

26:34

a part say. And I think

26:36

that makes it a lot more aligned incentive, and

26:39

that's how people actually feel more part of the

26:41

business. When you make the user a partner and

26:43

a partner, that's when business exponential grows. And

26:45

we're gonna see this happen with every business as we

26:47

know it. As more and more

26:49

people have wallets, as more and more

26:51

businesses get tokenized, as we tokenize your

26:53

estate, or eventually every

26:56

business I believe will also be tokenized.

27:00

And we will be living in this, you could say the

27:02

cart or some people with whichever token you have, that's the

27:04

company you support, that's the company you feel for, and

27:06

that's the company that you actually help grow. And I

27:08

think that's gonna help business also become a lot better

27:11

in how they do and how they deal with their

27:13

customers. Do you think Web3 changes the

27:15

world fundamentally as human relationships? Because

27:17

like you said, this whole competition thing

27:19

has been drilled into us. We've even

27:21

been told that it's based in Darwinism,

27:23

which some people disagree with that. Peter

27:26

Thiel, famous investor, says competition is for losers, which

27:28

I love that concept. And he says in school,

27:30

we're taught to compete with each other, which

27:33

is silly because all of the great people don't compete

27:35

with each other, they go do their own crazy ideas,

27:37

whether you're Elon Musk or Steve Jobs or whatever. Web3,

27:40

it instills cooperation. Do

27:43

you think as this gets adopted more and more,

27:45

the world might actually change to where

27:47

we actually realize that we cooperate with

27:49

each other and then we go forward?

27:51

Do you think it actually can change

27:53

humanity, not just corporations or protocols? So

27:56

remember Web3 and technology, I like to

27:58

say even before Web3, I was

28:00

always deep in technology, and I've been using technology to

28:02

make all the impact that I've been able to do, and

28:05

I invest in technology, and when I look at

28:07

businesses in Web3 and outside of Web3, I like

28:09

to see how they're using technology to disrupt things.

28:11

So Web3 is gonna give us the tools to

28:14

basically enable decentralization, enable

28:16

distributed governance, enable finally giving

28:18

power back to the common man. Web3 is gonna

28:20

give us those tools, but remember, we

28:23

saw a lot of friction. The elite don't wanna lose

28:25

that power. They don't wanna let that

28:27

power go. They tried for a long time to

28:29

say Bitcoin is a scam and Bitcoin is a

28:31

fraud. They just realized they couldn't stop it,

28:33

and then they're like, okay, let's see how we can collect fees

28:35

on it. So now they're trying to pick the fees.

28:37

So Web3 is a tool. How

28:41

we use it and how we implement

28:43

it, technology and how we use that in

28:45

our day-to-day life is gonna depend on the people,

28:47

as humans that actually make that thing happen. So

28:50

end of the day, Web3 is definitely a great

28:52

tool, and it can make humanity a lot better.

28:55

Technology generally is a great tool. I

28:57

like to be a lot in Web3 because that's

28:59

the part in technology, that's the space in

29:01

technology where I feel very happy working because

29:03

it's all about giving back. It's all about

29:06

collaboration. It feels great to be involved in

29:08

this space. AI is another technology

29:10

that's gonna change the world in a very, very

29:12

big way. So it's for sure

29:14

we know that today, technology is changing the

29:16

world in a very fast way, and

29:19

maybe AI, maybe blockchain, internet has already

29:22

changed the world. The

29:24

culture has shifted so fast in the

29:26

last 20 years, right? I

29:29

like to say this in my speeches and conferences, most

29:31

people underestimate what technology will

29:33

do in 10 years and overestimate

29:35

what's gonna happen in two years. But

29:38

technology grows on a, every business

29:40

grows like 10, 20, 30% a year. You

29:42

pick up any car business, restaurant business,

29:45

they grow on a normal growth rate, right? There's so

29:47

much, to grow a restaurant, you have to create a

29:49

new dish. Every time you have to keep creating a

29:52

dish. But in

29:54

technology or any other business, if you wanna sell a hotel

29:56

room, you have to clean the hotel room, if you wanna

29:58

sell clothing, you have to make a new jacket. a new jacket,

30:00

new jacket. Technology, you make the

30:02

app once, or you make the protocol

30:05

once, seven billion people can use it tomorrow.

30:08

So technology grows exponentially, grows

30:10

in a J curve. You go like this, you don't see

30:12

any growth for the first few years, like

30:15

that's where you have to be involved so you get the air drop. You

30:17

get it early. Then

30:20

you have this point where people realize, holy shit,

30:22

this is amazing, and then everybody can start losing

30:24

it. And that's what happened, we

30:26

saw that happen with first with Facebook, then

30:28

with Instagram, then with Snapchat, and now with

30:31

OpenAI, chat GPT, that was five days a

30:33

million users. So a TikTok

30:35

was. And a month, 100 million users. So

30:38

that's what technology is. But there was 10 years of

30:40

AI being built. That didn't happen overnight. People

30:42

think AI's gonna change the world in the next two years. That's been

30:44

10 years of work happening. Or 50 years if you look at it.

30:47

50 years if you look at it, yeah. So that's the

30:49

idea, but now it's reached the J curve. AI's

30:52

gonna remove so many, it's gonna change the way

30:54

everything happens today. 100% is gonna

30:56

change. People have no idea what to expect

30:59

when it comes to AI. It's gonna change the world. I

31:02

could fire half my staff right now. I've

31:04

always done that. But I could fire half my staff

31:06

today and replace them with AI. People

31:08

who know how to use AI are

31:10

gonna be the supermen of the future, the

31:12

superwomen of the future, who can just use

31:14

AI and make things happen. The

31:17

Sam Altman was just saying, there's gonna be this

31:19

company soon, a billion dollar company built by one

31:21

person, and AI, which is not possible before.

31:23

So I think that's, the world is definitely

31:26

changing. There's a huge culture shift. We

31:30

used to look at images in the gallery, then

31:32

we started photo, and now you scroll. Movies,

31:35

you see proper movies, then

31:38

you start seeing short videos. Now you

31:40

just scroll on TikTok. The

31:42

whole culture and everything, even like

31:45

relationships, there used to be marriage, court

31:47

shape, then came sexual freedom, now you

31:49

just swipe on the app. The

31:51

culture is changing. And it's not

31:53

a gradual change. It's a change that's

31:55

been happening over the last many years, a couple decades.

31:57

A metaverse is a big part of our crypto. to

32:00

talk about this right. I invest in

32:02

over 200 metaverse companies. I own land

32:04

in over like two dozen metaverses. But

32:07

a lot of it is still early. A lot of it is

32:09

not developed. So it's still early in that opportunity. We thought the

32:11

metaverse has come around in the last bull run. Facebook

32:14

changed its name to meta. Metaverse

32:16

companies blew up. And Facebook arguably

32:19

the top five largest company in the world, you

32:21

know, controls and minds and values. A lot of

32:23

people know what people are thinking, what people

32:25

are moving. There's a big reason from Alex Zekovar to

32:27

change his name to meta. Because he can predict the

32:29

future better than most people can. I like to say

32:31

the best way to predict the future is to go

32:33

build it, because the guy's building it. You want to

32:35

know, you want to listen to them, right? And

32:37

so I think with what the metaverse, most

32:40

people think of it as a virtual place where you know

32:42

like movie where you go and like live. But

32:44

I like to think of metaverse as a moment in

32:46

time. Like in AI

32:48

you have this idea of singularity where actual

32:50

intelligence is better than human intelligence. That's when

32:53

you're living in a singularity. I

32:55

think in the metaverse is this moment in

32:57

time when our digital life matters more to

32:59

us than our physical life. And

33:01

what you see that's been happening over the last few

33:04

decades is that 100% of our attention used

33:07

to be in the physical world. That's where all

33:09

our attention used to be. Then came TVs. This

33:12

sucked our attention into the digital world. 15-20% of

33:14

the time people would spend watching TV all day.

33:17

So that's like 80% physical, 20% digital. Then

33:19

came computers. Master change.

33:22

Another 30-40% went to the digital. People are

33:25

spending half the time on the digital world

33:27

and the other half on the physical world.

33:29

And now with iPhones, you go to a restaurant, go to

33:32

a cinema, people are always on their phones.

33:34

You're spending 80% of your time in the

33:36

digital world. Even when you're talking to somebody, you're

33:39

still on the phone. You're always alert with

33:41

the Apple Watch seeing what's happening. You're spending

33:43

so much of your time into the digital

33:45

world. And what's going to happen

33:47

eventually is with the Apple Vision

33:49

Pro, which just came out, you're

33:51

basically in the digital world at all times.

33:54

Yes, you have augmented reality. You have the

33:56

screen. I can see you, but I'm also

33:58

seeing the screen. But my attention is

34:00

always in the digital way. This

34:02

is not a new thing. So I was actually building

34:05

apps for Google Glass back in 2013. I

34:07

was the first 10 people in the world to make apps

34:09

for that. They used to call me a glass hole because

34:11

nobody liked having a guy with a camera here walking in

34:13

front of them. It was too early for his time. But

34:16

it's happened now. Because Apple

34:18

launched it, everybody welcomes it. Everybody wants to

34:20

buy the Apple version Pro. It's a little

34:22

bit expensive. Probably do it a couple of

34:24

years before it becomes accessible to everybody. But

34:27

it's happening. And wherever

34:29

your energy goes, wherever your

34:31

attention goes, that's where your energy goes. Wherever

34:34

your attention goes, that's where energy flows. And

34:36

wherever your energy flows, that's when you're living

34:38

in the metaverse. So I think it's going

34:40

to become much more important for people to

34:42

live in the metaverse. And people are going

34:44

to start spending a lot more time. It's

34:46

a gradual change that's been happening. And technology

34:48

is making this change possible. So

34:51

how we live, how we play, how we connect,

34:53

is all going to be disrupted by technology.

34:55

And it's already being disrupted by technology in

34:57

a very big way. And Web3

35:00

is one of those technology

35:02

innovations that has happened that's

35:04

going to distribute governance, I like to say,

35:06

and distribute power back. But I said, Web3,

35:08

all of technology is changing how you do

35:10

everything. And we're already in

35:12

a metaverse. Sometimes people think, oh, I have to

35:15

be an avatar in a room hanging out in

35:17

some land. No, you're in a metaverse if you're

35:19

on a Zoom call. Exactly. You're

35:21

already in a metaverse if you're interacting digitally with

35:23

another human. That is that metaverse. That's what it

35:25

is. How

35:29

do people used to play? People used to play

35:31

basketball and football. Now they play a fortnight. More

35:34

people play a fortnight than that's when a football's

35:36

combined. That just tells you, more

35:38

kids play a fortnight. So that's living in the metaverse.

35:41

How do people work? You used to go to a

35:43

boardroom. Now you do everything on Zoom.

35:45

That's living in the metaverse. How do

35:47

people play, work, enjoy?

35:51

Identity. What matters more to you? Your

35:53

life on Instagram, how you look on Instagram, how

35:55

you look in your life. If you could be your pajamas on

35:57

your bed, you could share much more of my photos than I'm

35:59

putting. That depends on your age to

36:02

a certain extent. So my dad who's 81,

36:04

he doesn't have a digital identity. My sons

36:06

are six and seven years old, their digital

36:08

identity is everything. And a teenage girl

36:11

in high school, like her digital identity

36:13

could be the most important thing. It's

36:15

more important to them than their real

36:17

life. They don't care if they have

36:19

pimples in real life and it affects their health, they care

36:21

that they don't have pimples in the photo. So

36:24

that's much more important, right? And that tells

36:26

you, at that point, you are already living

36:28

in the meta-wist. You can say whatever you

36:30

want, but when your digital life matters more to

36:32

you, you are already living in the meta-verse.

36:34

It's only a question matter of time when the avatar is gonna

36:36

be there, is gonna represent you. That's

36:39

probably the future. I

36:43

am very grateful and I'm very blessed and I'm

36:45

always grateful for the life I have had today

36:47

because of the opportunities and places

36:49

I've had. I can live my real

36:51

life. I can go out every night to the bar,

36:54

I can buy drinks, I can enjoy, I can fly

36:56

where I wanna go, I can travel. I

36:58

come from a place like India where 600 million

37:00

people, that's as many people in

37:03

Europe, double people in US, they

37:06

don't have the same opportunities. They make $500 a

37:08

month. And then you

37:10

look at Africa, the similar situation, right? For

37:13

these people, when they're making only

37:15

that few hundred dollars a month, they

37:17

don't have the same opportunities that I do or

37:19

that we do. For them, the

37:21

meta-verse is a blessing. A great example is,

37:24

for example, Romero Brito is the most licensed

37:26

artist in the history of the world. He's

37:28

got the most licensed with most brands. He

37:31

has the largest art gallery in the world,

37:33

the physical art gallery in Miami. If

37:35

you wanna go to his physical art gallery, you gotta be

37:37

his private art collector. His art is starting,

37:39

the cheapest one is like tens of thousands of dollars. So

37:43

you can't really go to his gallery unless you

37:45

are already very influential, very wealthy. So

37:49

how can the rest of the world, the 90%

37:51

will enjoy that gallery experience and see that Romero,

37:53

who's the most licensed artist in the history of

37:55

the world, created all this amazing art all this

37:58

time? That's why I'm working with him to create. his

38:00

Metaverse Gallery. So now for like

38:02

a dollar or just doing some quest,

38:04

you know, some airdrop and running

38:06

off like maybe sharing his photos or art, you can

38:09

join his Metaverse Gallery, see all

38:11

the people and amazing people that he's worked

38:13

with, what amazing creations he has made, amazing

38:15

brands, and you can see that guy's history

38:17

and enjoy. You're not going to be the same experience

38:19

as in the real gallery, but as close as you can

38:21

get to it without spending the tens of tons of dollars

38:24

that you would need to go to the real gallery. So

38:27

I think that's very exciting. So I think Metaverse

38:29

is going to and it's going to change the

38:32

way for the big, a huge

38:34

part of the world. More than half three

38:36

billion people, which is a big part of the world,

38:38

is going to change the world and how they live and how they

38:40

play. And I think it's going to be, why do you think TikTok

38:42

grew the fastest in India? It grew the

38:44

fastest in India because 600 million people in

38:46

India got access to the internet for the

38:48

first time when the India's billionaire Mokai Shambani

38:50

gave internet to free to all these

38:53

people with GEO. These people had no internet before

38:55

and now what did they have? They had internet all their

38:57

time. TikTok watching and entertaining themselves. They can't go to the

38:59

bar. They can't go to their restaurant. They can't

39:02

go every night to spend money. They can't afford it. They

39:04

can't afford it. They've got to feed their family in that

39:06

500 or so dollars. Maybe it's 300, maybe it's

39:09

800. That number is irrelevant. The point is you

39:11

just support a family and that's all you have.

39:13

You can't really go out and enjoy your real

39:15

life like you see on Instagram and what people

39:17

are doing. So for them, but you could do

39:19

that in the metaverse. You could spend that time

39:21

online and that's what is really happening. And

39:24

that's changing the way the world in a very,

39:26

very big way. And soon they could now work

39:28

in the metaverse. They could get those same

39:30

airdrops. That's what is happening. So we saw

39:32

the last bull market, the big adoption. I

39:35

wrote about this on articles on Cointelegraph and

39:37

Forbes where I said the last

39:39

bull market will come because of game

39:41

high. There's going to be a big adoption of

39:43

people who are going to play games and earn

39:45

tokens. And that's exactly what happened in Philippines and

39:47

Vietnam where five year old children and

39:50

50 year old grandmas started playing

39:52

these games, not because they enjoyed it, but

39:54

because they were able to earn this money

39:56

because somebody in Europe or in

39:58

the US, you know, they're. the mother's

40:00

credit cards are already attached to the iPad,

40:02

they're gonna spend $10 to just upgrade

40:04

the level quickly. But in Philippines, if you can

40:06

make $10 a day, you're

40:09

doing great. If you can do that while playing a game, sitting

40:11

on your couch, not having to do labor

40:13

or a hard intensive work which you're not passionate about, you're

40:15

gonna do that. You're not gonna go do that labor job.

40:17

And if you can do a little bit better, it's because there's

40:19

some sort of skill involved, if you can make $20, $30 a

40:21

day, hallelujah. You're

40:24

doing a lot better than you were doing your normal labor

40:26

job, you're driving a taxi or being a waiter. So

40:28

at that point, Web3

40:31

has bought that adoption in, right? And I

40:33

think that's what is really, that's again, when

40:35

you bring tokenization into these things, it

40:38

becomes really, really exciting. So

40:41

we already live in the metaverse. Now with

40:43

Web3 being attached to it, people are trying

40:45

to make a economy out of it. Because

40:48

what's gonna happen eventually is what's happening in the

40:50

real world also, right? Wherever attention

40:52

goes and that asset becomes more

40:54

valuable. Vice property in London or

40:57

in New York or in Paris what's way

40:59

more than in some part of Africa

41:01

or some part of Vietnam or some part of India.

41:04

This is where people wanna be. This

41:06

is where more people wanna come and this is

41:08

the prices go up, this is the demand and supply. I

41:11

think the metaverse will become like, they're gonna have a lot of

41:13

different metaverses, but the ones that people actually

41:15

wanna spend time in, where the people actually

41:17

wanna give their attention, the asset prices

41:19

of those metaverses will go up. But in this

41:21

time, it's open. You can

41:23

still have the chance to invest in London

41:25

and Manhattan 200 years ago. Because we are

41:28

part of the change. This current generation that

41:30

we have, we are literally

41:32

seeing this change take place. From going

41:35

to a world where 100% attention was in

41:37

the physical world and now 100% attention

41:39

to the digital world is happening in our generation. This

41:42

was not happening before us. So you

41:44

have this chance now to really

41:46

maybe buy property in London and New York 200 years ago.

41:49

And that's the kind of opportunity that

41:52

a lot of people have today. Because

41:55

we are still building this next

41:57

generation. You know, we had this, I don't know, I

41:59

don't know the word. with the homo sapiens

42:01

and all this evolution of mankind of

42:03

the human, now with neural

42:05

length, these chips splattered into people. They successfully had

42:07

that already done, where they already

42:09

had a chip and the person is happy to have that chip. Like

42:12

I said, technology grows exponentially, not linearly.

42:15

So it's not gonna be 100 years before everybody will

42:17

chip. Probably a few years where everybody will have chips

42:19

that will make them smarter and people are gonna enjoy

42:22

it. Instead of having a phone, this will be your

42:24

phone. Or this will be photos in your eye. So

42:27

that progress is coming. And when

42:29

that progress happens, you start

42:31

spending more and more time in the metaverse. The

42:34

metaverse is that actually contain the attention

42:37

are gonna be worth a lot more than the land in that

42:39

metaverse is gonna be worth a lot more than the land in

42:41

New York or Paris. That's fascinating, man.

42:44

Talk to me about art, because you are

42:46

a huge art collector. You also bought a

42:48

ton of NFTs in the past. And I'd

42:50

love to hear a list of your collections.

42:53

Obviously, the NFT market was super

42:55

bullish and it was kind of a bubble.

42:57

It crashed, but then last year, we saw

43:00

the ordinals market explode in a crazy way,

43:02

which is basically kind of an NFT on

43:04

the Bitcoin chain. What

43:06

do you see is the future of NFTs of

43:09

art? And just tell me,

43:12

in your opinion, what is

43:14

art and what is digital art? Because at the

43:16

end of the day, we are humans. We wanna

43:18

connect somehow and art is a way for us

43:20

to connect. And digital art is also maybe the

43:22

next evolution of that. So there's a couple of

43:24

questions in there that I can answer in different

43:27

ways. One is NFTs and

43:29

then what is art and what is digital

43:31

art? NFTs, right now, most people think of

43:33

NFTs as digital art. That's not true. NFTs

43:35

is a technology. NFTs is a

43:37

non-fungible token. When you have one Bitcoin, I have

43:39

one Bitcoin, we put it in a bowl and

43:41

then we take it out together. It's still the

43:43

same Bitcoin, right? It doesn't make a difference. Your

43:45

Bitcoin is not better than my Bitcoin. NFT

43:48

is basically a non-fungible token where

43:51

I have something different attached to my token. You

43:53

have something different attached. It's non-fungible. So that's why

43:56

they have different values. Maybe I

43:58

have a photo of a pig with a green. hat,

44:00

you have a photo of a pig with a yellow

44:02

cap and that's why there are different values because that

44:04

speaks to different people. So that's the

44:06

NFT. But NFTs is basically,

44:10

it can also be used as a technology.

44:12

I think in the very close future, our

44:15

driving license, our passport,

44:17

our identity documents, land records, car

44:20

records, everything will become NFT. And

44:23

instead of storing, I don't like to store any

44:25

of my like my watch paper documents sitting in

44:28

my house in Tulum. My ownership

44:30

property for property I own in Zanzibar is sitting in

44:32

my house in India. Like it's

44:34

all a mess, right? I have all these assets that

44:36

are on the wall and ownership of these assets are

44:38

basically pieces of paper that are sitting in

44:41

different parts of the world. And like to compile

44:43

them is also a problem. Let's say I'm sitting in India talking to

44:45

a dealer, I'm like, all right, this watch is yours. Oh,

44:47

I have to go to Tulum to pick up that paper and send it to you. So

44:50

that's the problem, right? So NFTs

44:52

are basically that ownership on

44:54

chain. So it becomes a digital asset. So it

44:57

is in your wallet and you can always prove

44:59

ownership because it's hard, you can't lie the blockchain

45:01

never lies, right? That's the best

45:03

part. So that's what NFTs I think

45:05

is going to be the real big use

45:08

of NFTs is identity is to prove ownership

45:10

is to prove provenance, you know, he

45:12

bought an apple, this is scan it and

45:14

the NFT tells where that apple is gone was grown

45:17

in this farm and this part of Zanzibar move

45:19

to this ship when there and that that

45:21

NFT, which is a digital token

45:24

has all that history about that Apple. So

45:26

I think that's the true potential of NFTs

45:28

that most people yet to realize. And

45:31

I think it's going to change the way a lot of the things

45:33

in the lot of business, a lot of the world

45:35

is run. Like I said, I like

45:37

a lot of example in India, a lot of the land

45:39

records are already on blockchain. But

45:42

they're not a bit on

45:44

blockchain behind the scenes, the user doesn't know that.

45:47

But it's going to happen eventually where most

45:49

users will have their wallet and then your most ownership will

45:51

be in your wallet. And that's what's going to happen. Think

45:55

about NFTs like most people know it today,

45:57

like these digital profile picture collections you have.

46:00

of the apes, so I made a lot

46:02

of money in crypto and I

46:04

started buying and I was told to buy the

46:06

NFTs at a very early stage, but because I

46:08

was so busy investing in like, I invested in

46:10

600 companies today. Not for, I had 600 plus

46:13

today, not 400 anymore. I knew it was higher.

46:15

I'm sorry, because I've been investing very actively last

46:17

few days, last few weeks, last few months. I

46:21

think it was like 60 companies just in this

46:23

year. Because the bull market's back? Because the bull

46:25

market's back, so I now. And now you're focused.

46:27

I'm fully focused. Right now, you're

46:29

putting 10% of effort. You get 100%

46:31

of results. When

46:34

it's a bear cycle, you put in 10% of

46:36

effort, you get 1% of results. So

46:39

it's like a huge exponential growth right now you get

46:41

just by being active right now. So,

46:44

but yeah, so basically I bought a lot of NFTs, but

46:46

I bought them at the peak of the last bull. When

46:48

the board apes, like which were worth $300,000, I

46:51

bought one ape. And your watch was a board ape as

46:53

well? Well, this is a Richard Milley, but I have a

46:56

board ape watch also. Okay, gotcha. So, but

46:58

like, so I bought a board. It's the first one I bought was $250,000. And

47:02

then I bought some

47:04

more. I like, oh, this is fun. I bought another

47:06

few. I bought seven apes, spent a couple million dollars

47:08

on that. And then I ended up buying like all

47:10

the top collections. I bought seven is my lucky number.

47:12

I bought seven doodles, seven kimonixes, pudgy

47:15

penguins, cryptopunks. And now

47:17

I have a lot, I spent over $5 million

47:19

buying all types of NFTs. I'm down around $3

47:22

million on my NFTs. But that's because,

47:24

that's just because I bought the highest ones. Because

47:26

I was trying to create this sort

47:29

of digital art collection, you know, like that fits somebody of

47:31

my stature. So I'm like, I have to have all the

47:33

top ones. So like you're trying to go buy a Picasso

47:35

after it's already a Picasso. So

47:37

I'm still bullish long term. I still believe,

47:39

I've never sold any of these NFTs. So

47:42

I believe they will all go up much more than, because

47:44

we are still very, very, very early. If

47:46

you think there's like 100 million

47:49

people using crypto, less than

47:51

2 million people actually play around with

47:53

NFTs. So they're still very, very early.

47:55

So I think I'm still gonna do fine. It's

47:57

obviously not as lucrative as I would have thought.

48:00

But leaving the financial element

48:02

out of it, like forget the money part of

48:04

NFTs, I like to think of

48:06

NFTs that they've solved one of the biggest problems

48:08

that most people actually don't realize is

48:11

loneliness. NFTs to me

48:13

are trying to solve a problem of

48:15

loneliness, which is a big, which is a

48:17

trillion dollar problem, I like to think of it today, when

48:20

more and more people are spending their time

48:22

online, they're not going out to connect with

48:24

a person and play basketball, they're playing Fortnite,

48:26

you don't know who's behind that avatar, you

48:29

could be talking, I'm gonna shoot you, I'm gonna shoot that,

48:31

but you don't know who that person is, there's no connection

48:33

there, right? Whereas when I used to

48:35

play basketball or football with a friend, you

48:37

would become friends, you would actually build a connection.

48:40

So there's a huge problem of loneliness

48:42

and depression, which linked a lot of

48:44

mental health problems today, that

48:46

people don't talk about it as much. Right, and

48:48

lack of birth rate and drug addiction all comes

48:51

from that. All comes from loneliness. If you had

48:53

a friend who could tell if you're not doing

48:55

well, you wouldn't have the suicides. Fusets

48:57

happen because their own friends don't realize that person

49:00

is living in depression, how would they? Because they're

49:02

not connected. You're only talking online

49:04

on WhatsApp, you can't tell how a person feels

49:06

on WhatsApp, the emotions never come across. I

49:08

think NFTs have found a way to

49:11

create these communities of

49:13

people with similar interests or a certain

49:15

stature, there's different ways to look at it. Now

49:17

everywhere I go in the world, I travel a lot, I've

49:20

been on over 100 flights every year for the

49:22

last dozen years, even during COVID, I was

49:24

traveling all the time. And I

49:27

have somebody who'd love to travel, love to go to a

49:29

new place and explore. And when you

49:31

do like that, it's hard to build relationships to some

49:33

extent because you meet new people all the time. But

49:36

with NFTs now, everywhere I go,

49:38

I can always go into a telegram group

49:40

or the discord group and like, hey guys, I'm in Hong Kong.

49:43

The other board mates, the other doodles are like,

49:45

okay, you wanna go with me here? Do you

49:47

wanna go here? What are you gonna do today?

49:49

And they're always cool. They're always cool, doesn't matter.

49:51

I'm in Hong Kong, I'm in London, I'm in

49:53

China, I'm in Tulum, I'm in any part of

49:55

the world I could end up in, I could

49:57

go to Africa, I would find

49:59

people. Well, from one of these NFT collections, which

50:01

I'm a part of, they're a part of, they know

50:03

that we connect because we are part of the same

50:06

community and the same team, and they're always happy to

50:08

connect, always happy to offer value. They're like, how do

50:10

we connect? You wanna go to this bar tonight? Where

50:12

can I take you out? And that's the same for me. If

50:15

you are part of the board of community or CryptoPods,

50:17

you're always welcome to my cast NFT, you come and

50:19

stay for free. It's a public statement I've made,

50:22

right? I'm happy to meet with these people

50:24

who are this early, who would know what's going on

50:26

in this space because they think it's the same like

50:28

me. Yeah, that's cool.

50:30

And then now what has happened with

50:32

different NFT collections have attracted different communities,

50:35

but there's some sort of similarity. You join the,

50:37

I don't know, the one

50:39

community that's about people who like to be

50:41

in plants, you know, either Murakami flowers. So

50:44

that's people who actually care

50:46

about artists like Murakami, traditional artists, or people like

50:49

to care about plants. So you know, that's what

50:51

you expect. With the board ape, it

50:53

is what it is. It's like one of the communities

50:55

which is the most influential with the most celebrities. So

50:57

you know that you will connect with that kind of people.

51:00

Crypto punks, when the OG communities, you know when somebody

51:02

is a crypto punk, this is what you expect. If

51:05

you ask me, NFTs are dead, just a couple days

51:07

ago, there was a $15 million bid made for a

51:09

crypto punk. So I don't think NFTs are dead by

51:12

any chance. How many punks you got? I

51:14

got a few punks. I got like two

51:16

that's on my public wallet, and then a few more

51:18

that I bought as investment that I don't share on

51:20

mine. Because they're coming back already. They're coming back. They're

51:22

already back. They're already back. I think the floor price

51:24

is running to the hundreds of thousands of dollars right

51:26

now. You

51:30

know we're back when there's photos of rock,

51:32

ether rock, right? Which are selling for half

51:34

a million dollars each. I'm here

51:36

like with one of my friend, Andy Broussard, he's an ether rock

51:38

himself. He's always like me to buy ether rock. Ether

51:41

rock is all about the community. It's not

51:43

worth half a million dollars because

51:45

it's like a photo of a rock. You

51:47

know that there's only a hundred of those

51:50

rocks, and everybody who has that rock is

51:52

an OG, is influential, is

51:54

a top player. Either he was

51:56

very early into crypto, or he did really, really well

51:58

that he could afford to pay. a half a million

52:00

dollars or more for a photo of a

52:03

rock. So you're buying into the community. It's like the

52:05

membership clubs of today, but this

52:07

is all digital because like we said, we're

52:09

living in the metaverse. What matters more to

52:11

you? Your membership to animals or membership to

52:13

ether rock? I would choose the

52:15

ether rock. Probably, right? Yeah, because they even give me

52:17

more value. That's crazy, man. So

52:20

project this out to the future, like in

52:22

this bull run or two years, three years,

52:24

four years. What do you think that evolution

52:26

of those NFTs are? So

52:28

I think all of these early NFTs that

52:30

like the apes or the punks or the

52:32

rocks, like these are gonna be like the

52:34

OGs of the OGs. These were the first

52:37

NFTs ever minted on chain. I think they

52:39

will do well long-term anyways. There's

52:41

a lot where the value is in the community

52:43

itself. There's a lot of new ones. Like Pudgy

52:45

penguins is a great community. They recently

52:47

went from, I had friends telling me to buy

52:49

them since they were like basically pennies on the

52:51

dollar. And I was like, I

52:53

only buy the big guys because I don't really

52:56

buy the new upcoming collections. I have to be

52:58

careful about my reputation associating with any community, which

53:00

is not the best. And today, not

53:03

today, but like a few days ago, they flipped the

53:05

Bode. At some point, they were the number one most

53:07

expensive NFTs. A total market cap. A total market cap.

53:09

Now they're back to number two, behaves to back up

53:11

to number one, but they did that. And

53:14

they went from under one eat to 20

53:16

plus eat in a short

53:18

time because of the community behind it. Because

53:21

of the community. Is because the

53:23

people who are part of the 10,000 pudgies, they're

53:26

all top builders. They're all rewarding their

53:28

community. They're all building amazing things. And

53:30

they're rewarding other community members. It's all

53:33

like builders. It's all like doers. It's

53:35

all community builders. Nobody who's part

53:37

of pudgy is like a loser. Or just bought,

53:39

like a lot of Bode apes are

53:41

like people like me who buy multiple to invest. But

53:44

pudgies are mostly all builders. Who

53:46

actually bought them at cheap. And they went

53:48

up in price because these guys all did really well.

53:50

And none of them wanna sell. And

53:53

they're so close to the community. So that's what I'm,

53:55

so for a collection like that, the

53:57

value will stay as far as the community

53:59

stays. You lose the community, you

54:01

lose the value. But for collections

54:04

like CryptoPunks, or like

54:06

the Apes which have been there, which have been the first,

54:08

the OG collection, the rocks which have been there for so

54:10

long, they will sustain

54:12

value long term, and that's why you see them selling

54:14

the Sotheby's and all these places now. Because these are

54:16

real pieces of art that are gonna

54:18

have, they're gonna have, you can't

54:20

go and recreate NFT back in 2017. You

54:23

can't do that anymore. That's only gonna be

54:25

the ones that was already there. And I think

54:27

that's why Ordinals has come to become so big

54:30

and has been such a big growth. And

54:32

I don't really buy NFTs anymore after the

54:34

first five million dollar shopping spree I did.

54:37

I now, but I've started buying, I spent a

54:39

little bit on Ordinals because I believe Ordinals is

54:41

that space which has the same opportunity. Because end

54:44

of the day, all these

54:46

NFTs we have in Ethereum, we are betting

54:49

that Ethereum stays long term, which I'm bullish on,

54:51

like big part of my 20% of my portfolio

54:53

is in Ethereum. But at the

54:55

same time, Ethereum is a smart contract technology. There's a

54:57

thousand other people trying to build a

54:59

smart contract technology, right? So, versus

55:01

Bitcoin is the most distributed, powerful

55:03

system that we know, and it's

55:06

not going anywhere. Like, there

55:08

may be a chance that Ethereum is not

55:10

here in the future because there's better technology

55:12

that replaces it. But you can't

55:14

really replace Bitcoin because it's not just

55:16

the technology anymore. It's the collection

55:18

of these tens of thousands of networks,

55:20

nodes around the world, which

55:22

keep Bitcoin running, which make Bitcoin what it is.

55:25

That's what Bitcoin is backed, people ask what is

55:27

Bitcoin backed by. It's backed by all

55:29

these people around the world. You can't turn Bitcoin off. You

55:31

can't control it. You can't censor it in a way.

55:35

You can't be a government and like, that's

55:37

what China tries so many times. It's a

55:40

Bitcoin. Every time they ban it, it goes

55:42

up in price. Yeah, because they arguably tried

55:44

and then they realized they can't do it.

55:46

They can't stop Bitcoin because it's truly decentralized.

55:49

Dozens of countries have nodes running. And as far

55:52

as that last node is running, Bitcoin

55:54

will keep running. And game theory

55:56

makes it that there's not one road running.

55:59

There's really multiple roads. running all the time because

56:01

it becomes a financial incentive to keep running nodes.

56:04

So that's what is really beautiful about Bitcoin.

56:06

That's why I think NFTs on Bitcoin, that's

56:08

why like the NFTs minted on the earliest

56:10

Bitcoin are also worth a lot more. There's

56:12

special provisions. Like Ethereum you don't have that.

56:15

You know, NFTs, yes, when you minted it

56:17

makes a difference but you don't have like

56:19

special NFTs minted on special blocks. In

56:22

Bitcoin you have that, right? You have that benefit that if

56:24

there's a minted on a block that happened back in the

56:26

day when the first blocks of Bitcoin it's worth a lot

56:28

more than what's now. So I think

56:31

that's why Ordinals is going to be, has also

56:33

that opportunity to be there for a long time.

56:35

Yeah, BRC20 is super exciting. We've made a few

56:37

investments in that space. You know, you just spoke

56:39

really eloquently about community, Evan. We just

56:42

saw Dogecoin pop like 50% and

56:45

people always make fun of Dogecoin. It's number nine

56:47

in market cap right now and at some point

56:49

you have to stop making fun of it and

56:51

say, well what the hell is going on here

56:53

and what's going on there is community

56:55

at the end of the day. It's another version of

56:57

community, maybe not as deep as an NFT, but it

56:59

feels to me like a bunch of people that want

57:01

to be a part of that thing and for people

57:03

that nay say crypto, okay, you got shift that nay

57:05

says Bitcoin. I think he's being proven, you

57:08

know, maybe wrong in that sense and I had shift

57:10

on the show early on 10 years ago. You got

57:12

people that nay say Dogecoin but you're starting to see

57:14

that it's a representation of

57:17

a human need to connect with each other.

57:19

At least that's what I see. What do

57:21

you see when you see meme coins going

57:23

through the roof like Dogecoin and Shiba OG's

57:25

and then things like Pepe and these others.

57:27

What do you see there? That is all

57:29

purely community-placed. In crypto, you don't

57:32

need a million followers. You need a

57:34

thousand strong holders who believe in you

57:36

and hold your tokens. A thousand strongholder

57:38

community members is worth a

57:40

lot more than a million followers. That's

57:42

how crypto works. It's like a thousand

57:44

X scale than the old

57:46

world of web 2, right? Exactly. You need

57:48

a thousand X less in order to make

57:51

a vibrant community that's even economically viable. Exactly.

57:53

In crypto, it's all about community. If you

57:55

have these few holders and they are strong

57:57

proponents, that's going to set the floor. The

58:00

price is not set by the buyers, the price is

58:02

set by the sellers. And

58:04

that's the holders. That's the people who are actually holding

58:06

new assets. And crypto is purely

58:08

run on community. And that's why you see

58:10

these Dojes and Shiba's growing because, and this

58:12

touches back on the point I just said

58:14

before, people don't do their own research. They

58:17

just want to buy what somebody else tells them to buy. And

58:20

it's a lot easier to make memes part

58:22

of the culture than to tell

58:24

you that, hey, go buy this coin that's really

58:26

going to change the system or are you going

58:28

to make something really truly revolutionary. It's just easier

58:30

to tell people to go buy a Doji coin because

58:33

people relate to a dog or they love dogs or

58:36

go buy a Pepe because it's a famous meme from the past.

58:39

And that's why Elon Musk, he's pumped Dojes

58:41

so many times just by talking about it.

58:44

And he's also made the statement, sometimes

58:46

the most ironical outcome is what that

58:48

takes place and Doji become a global

58:50

reserve currency is an ironical outcome. But

58:53

a global reserve currency is the one that people would

58:55

trade and trust in. That

58:57

was the US dollar for now for a long time. It

59:00

is what Bitcoin is, what people believe in, but

59:02

there's not saying that it couldn't be Doji. Why did

59:04

it spike? Which one?

59:07

Doji. It's bad because it's people buying,

59:09

right? People buying because people think that they can make money.

59:12

There's people who are telling them that you can buy Doji

59:14

and you will make money. There's actual investment

59:16

advisors telling people to buy Doji.

59:19

And people, so like I said, I

59:21

would say even today, 90% of crypto investors,

59:23

they buy what somebody else tells them

59:25

to buy. They do not do

59:27

their own research. They do not read about the project. They

59:29

depend on somebody else doing research for them and telling them

59:32

that is still a lot of people. So

59:34

that's what it is all about. And a lot of

59:36

people, it's easy to explain Doji than it's to go

59:38

and explain Bitcoin. Isn't that crazy? And

59:41

it's a real community. It's a real community. And

59:43

that network might have value in the future just

59:45

because of its community. Exactly. I

59:47

mean, Elon's made reference that he might use it for payments

59:49

or something. Maybe that's a little bit far fetched. That's a

59:51

little bit far fetched, but yeah. Value there,

59:53

right? Yeah. That's

59:56

a huge testimonial. If Elon says, have another

59:58

coin, that coin will go a thousand. next right away.

1:00:01

So Doji is a multi-brain auto market

1:00:03

cap but people also need to understand

1:00:05

Doji is an inflationary coin.

1:00:07

They create new Doji coin every single day.

1:00:09

There's new ones created every day. So I

1:00:12

don't really feel long term it has any

1:00:14

sustenance unless it becomes a

1:00:16

cult which is what it is like

1:00:18

right now. A lot of these meme coins are basically

1:00:20

cults. People pushing

1:00:22

bags that they have with other people so

1:00:24

that their bags go up in value. But

1:00:28

I don't really play around in memes so much. I

1:00:30

don't hold Doji. I don't hold Pepe. I don't hold

1:00:32

because I actually understand what's going on in the space.

1:00:34

I actually know what products are building. I'm doing research

1:00:36

all day and I want to invest in the products

1:00:38

that I think are actually going to change the world.

1:00:41

Like you said, they're actually going to make a transformation.

1:00:44

I don't think Doji and Cib have been going to do that. I

1:00:46

don't think Pepe is going to do that. But

1:00:48

for a lot of traders, I don't trade right.

1:00:50

I'm an investor. I buy and I hold. Talk

1:00:52

about that because there's a lot of people out

1:00:54

there, KOLs and people don't know what that means.

1:00:56

Key opinion leaders that trade. And

1:00:59

they're like, okay, I'm looking at this chart and I'm

1:01:01

doing this. You told me the other night, you said,

1:01:03

look, I'm not a trader. I'm an investor. Yeah. Tell

1:01:05

me what that means and tell me the way that

1:01:07

you engage in the market. Like how do you do

1:01:10

it? Why do you do it? Because I think it's

1:01:12

important to get inside your head. So you got to

1:01:14

remember, so if you're seeing any KOL or a crypto

1:01:16

influencer, as most people would know them, if you think

1:01:18

any influencer telling you I want to trade there, I'm going

1:01:21

to trade that, you got to remember most of them are

1:01:23

getting paid when you trade because they're telling, they're giving you

1:01:25

a link that you trade through and

1:01:27

they're getting big and they're telling you to leverage

1:01:29

trade. I started to tell people

1:01:31

stay away from leverage. Like I can

1:01:33

touch about this later. Leverage in different

1:01:35

ways is a secret to success in

1:01:38

life, but leverage trading is one

1:01:40

of the easiest way to get wrecked. So

1:01:42

I actually tell everybody don't leverage

1:01:44

trade because the assets volatile enough, right? They've

1:01:46

already wanted enough and 90% of

1:01:49

people will lose money trading. Trading only

1:01:51

a very few small people make money

1:01:53

because trading is you're not creating wealth.

1:01:55

You're not creating when I invest, I

1:01:57

invest in a business early on and

1:01:59

that business. creates value and

1:02:01

that creates wealth. In trading, it's

1:02:03

player versus player. You're taking money from somebody

1:02:05

else. So there's no wealth being created. You

1:02:08

basically have to be better than the other

1:02:10

guy who's losing money for you to make

1:02:12

money. In trading, 90% of people lose money

1:02:15

for 10% of people to make money. So this

1:02:17

is great, but it doesn't work for most

1:02:19

people. Most people don't have the discipline. They

1:02:22

don't have what it takes to be a good trader. They

1:02:25

will come in, they will get involved. That's why I said,

1:02:27

forget coming into the space thinking I have $1,000, $10,000. Because

1:02:30

when you think like that, you think okay, how can I trade?

1:02:32

And you try to make these trades very quickly. You

1:02:35

can't be an investor with a little bit of money.

1:02:37

You can only, mostly be a trader, right? So that's

1:02:39

why I tell people don't think how I

1:02:41

can use the $10,000 I have and trade my

1:02:43

way to a million because you probably lose that 10,000. Come

1:02:46

in and think how you can add value to the space and what you

1:02:49

could be a builder in a way. So

1:02:51

most influencers in crypto, I

1:02:53

have friends with a lot of them, my close friends. I

1:02:56

know since a lot of them have, they have

1:02:58

become from nowhere to like the top because they

1:03:01

made all their money, not by becoming good traders,

1:03:03

but by telling people how to trade and making

1:03:06

a fee when that person trades. Let's say you

1:03:08

are an average common man. You have $1,000 you

1:03:10

decide I wanna put it in crypto. You

1:03:13

see an influencer telling you, sign up

1:03:15

now and go buy Bitcoin at like a 10X

1:03:17

leverage. And then Bitcoin falls 10%

1:03:19

and your balance is gone. You're already liquidated.

1:03:22

But you also, when you bought that $1,000

1:03:24

of Bitcoin you made a teller, if

1:03:26

you put a 10,000 on a trade, your

1:03:28

fees should unfold $10,000, not on $1,000. You're

1:03:31

already paying a lot of money in the

1:03:33

fees which is split with that influencer. So that's

1:03:35

what happens in crypto a lot. And

1:03:37

that is something, it's like

1:03:40

a chicken and egg problem. I don't like that at

1:03:42

all as much, but also you gotta give credit where

1:03:44

credit is due that these people actually onboarded a lot

1:03:46

of people to crypto. Without that

1:03:48

shilling, maybe some people have never come

1:03:50

into crypto. A lot of people come into crypto, they trade,

1:03:52

and they realize they would have made more money if they

1:03:55

just held onto Bitcoin. If you just hold

1:03:57

onto the asset, you would have made more money than trying to

1:03:59

trade your way. through it. And even till

1:04:01

today, this even applies to even me. I

1:04:03

don't trade but I buy early

1:04:05

and then I do sell my tokens and then

1:04:07

sometimes the tokens go up more in higher end

1:04:10

value, right? So like holding, like the name of

1:04:12

my group I run is called Diamond Hands because

1:04:14

you're going to have diamond hands, you don't try

1:04:16

to sell, you try to hold as long as

1:04:18

you can and that's how you get the biggest

1:04:20

wins. And for most people, that's how

1:04:22

actually they have changed their lives in crypto is

1:04:24

because they held on. Some of the best investment

1:04:26

returns I've had is because I made an

1:04:29

investment and it wasn't some really hard chain where

1:04:31

to create the world was so complicated to save the

1:04:33

world. I never used it and I forgot I had

1:04:35

this tokens on them. So I invested

1:04:37

a company called Ecomy OMI back

1:04:39

in 2017, 2018 and it was

1:04:42

on this Go chain which nobody uses. Nobody

1:04:44

uses it but that company ended up using it and

1:04:47

this company did so, so well. They got part

1:04:49

of the Marvel, Disney, the NFTs for all these

1:04:51

guys. They come and build on a company. I

1:04:53

invested like a couple million or so market cap and

1:04:55

my investment went to 150X. I would have

1:04:58

never held on to 150X. I would have probably sold it. I

1:05:00

would have only got a 50X

1:05:03

or so but I forgot about this investment

1:05:05

because it's sitting on this chain that nobody actually uses.

1:05:07

So that's like, those are true

1:05:10

things. It's very hard to hold

1:05:12

and they're going to 5,000% return.

1:05:14

Even a thousand percent and another interesting fact

1:05:16

is, 35% of traders and

1:05:19

investors will sell it at 2X. 75% of

1:05:22

investors and traders will sell it when

1:05:25

they do at 200% return.

1:05:27

And this is something we all know

1:05:29

and it's still hard to control. Even

1:05:32

today I'm seeing so many growth in my tokens. I'm

1:05:34

like, this is crazy. I've made so much money. I

1:05:36

should realize some of this but I keep telling myself,

1:05:38

you're not even starting. The moon market is

1:05:40

not even starting. This is going to be a joke.

1:05:42

This is nothing compared to the returns I will make

1:05:45

and I've done this so many times. You still want

1:05:47

to sell. You still want to sell because you made

1:05:49

so much money compared to where you were a year

1:05:51

ago. So you're like, holy shit,

1:05:53

this is like a 10X. 10X

1:05:55

is easy in crypto if you really can hold

1:05:57

it out to the peak. a

1:06:00

cultural 100x. That's

1:06:02

the difference, that's the mindset you have to have. But

1:06:04

yeah, like, you gotta be careful when you listen to

1:06:06

influencers and they're telling you to trade. Most

1:06:08

people will lose money trading. What I do

1:06:10

is I invest early into companies. You

1:06:13

may not be able to do that because it

1:06:15

requires having access and knowing people. I've traveled to

1:06:17

40 countries in person, spoken

1:06:19

at 200 events, live in person, talking

1:06:21

about Bitcoin, NFTs, Web3. Just

1:06:23

put me in front of a lot of people. So people reach me

1:06:25

out for deals, they bring me deals. So

1:06:28

I'm at a point where I get these early access

1:06:30

deals where I can have the opportunity to invest in

1:06:32

deals early. As a retail guy, if you're

1:06:34

watching this, you could probably join launch pads, you can

1:06:36

join DOWs. You know, you have, you can start

1:06:38

some of the similar opportunity. You probably wouldn't be able

1:06:40

to invest big ticket sizes that way, but

1:06:42

you could invest a few hundred dollars or a little

1:06:44

bit in different projects which are still yet early. And

1:06:47

when they grow, you grow with them. You know, and

1:06:49

if you believe that project is gonna do great, you

1:06:51

can do that. There are groups like

1:06:54

Gaines Associates, DCI, Dutch

1:06:56

Crypto Investors. There's a few more that you

1:06:58

can join. They can find wherever you're based.

1:07:00

You know, you find these telegram groups where

1:07:03

people are getting access deals, and that's what you

1:07:05

do. I think that's always a

1:07:07

better than trying to trade you away to success

1:07:09

because people are really making, they're able to

1:07:11

show you the charts, oh look, how much I made. They're

1:07:14

not really making that money from that. Most

1:07:16

of the photos are screenshot, and most of them are

1:07:18

dummy accounts. They're mostly making money from you actually trading

1:07:20

with the link, not with them actually,

1:07:22

you know, successfully trading

1:07:24

their way. Because if they were, they wouldn't need to talk

1:07:27

about it too much. Like, I know

1:07:29

successful traders, like really successful guys, and it's

1:07:31

hard to get value out of them. Like,

1:07:34

I keep badging them because I know they are

1:07:36

good traders. I know they've done well, and

1:07:38

I ask them what's to trade, and they don't wanna

1:07:40

ask them. Because I want to share the alpha. Right,

1:07:42

what do they say? Those that say don't know, and

1:07:45

those that know don't say. Exactly, it's exactly. The ones

1:07:47

who really are good traders, they

1:07:49

don't need to tell you how to trade because

1:07:51

that affects their alpha. If

1:07:53

the more people buy, it doesn't make the trade

1:07:56

as useful if more people know about it. That's

1:07:58

what alpha is all about, keeping it hidden. But

1:08:01

people telling you, a lot of these influencers,

1:08:03

they make a video, that's why they have

1:08:05

the success they have because I've lived with

1:08:07

these influencers in the same villa for weeks

1:08:09

and they're consistent. They make a

1:08:12

video in the morning, a video in the evening, Bitcoin

1:08:14

goes up or down, doesn't matter. You make a video

1:08:16

and you tell people to trade, right? Bitcoin went up,

1:08:18

sign up on my LinkedIn trade. Bitcoin went down, sign

1:08:20

up on it. The idea is they're getting their money

1:08:23

from that trading leagues and that's what most people need

1:08:25

to realize and also understand that.

1:08:27

So that's something very important for people to know. So

1:08:30

obviously investing with a long term mindset and not just investing,

1:08:33

everything in life, everything in life you do with a long

1:08:35

term mindset, you win that at the end

1:08:37

of the day. Trading is a short term

1:08:39

mindset. So investing

1:08:41

is obviously a better way to do. When

1:08:44

people ask me how to get involved in crypto, I

1:08:46

mean people who are already made it to a certain

1:08:48

point, you already have some capital, you're

1:08:50

talking just from an investor perspective, I

1:08:52

like to say just buy some Bitcoin, buy some

1:08:55

Ethereum, diversify a little bit into, put 10% into,

1:08:58

1% into 10 different meta-worth coins, 1%

1:09:01

into 10 different RWA coins, 10

1:09:04

different AI coins, 1% each, and

1:09:06

then you put like 30, 40% of Bitcoin, then 10% and

1:09:09

1% of different L1s, L2s. So you have

1:09:11

a diversified portfolio, because you're the investor

1:09:13

you will win, but you don't know which one will win and if you

1:09:15

don't have the time, just buy and hold that and

1:09:17

then you see that that will pay you off long term

1:09:19

anyways. And you may not make like a 100X,

1:09:22

but overall it will make like a 10X, which is still

1:09:24

better than 0.25X or like 1.25X if

1:09:28

you made buying property or buying into another

1:09:30

business. So that's what I tell people,

1:09:32

yeah. What's KOL Capital? So

1:09:34

KOL Capital is basically, I've

1:09:37

been at KOL since before, our

1:09:39

influencer, before I got into crypto,

1:09:41

right? I was, I sold my company,

1:09:43

I was 17, I came

1:09:45

into a couple million, I was living this, I didn't wanna

1:09:47

go to university, moved to San Francisco.

1:09:51

After starting my company, I got invited to speak at

1:09:53

TED, got invited to speak at many universities around India,

1:09:56

the chairman of Google India, invited me on

1:09:58

stage, cause I was building iPhone apps. Android

1:10:00

apps and Android was still early

1:10:02

at that time and Google

1:10:05

wanted people to build apps for Android and I was

1:10:07

17 and they basically used me as a marketing tool

1:10:09

and put me on stage in front of 50,000 people

1:10:12

in like five different cities in India. They were doing

1:10:14

this big Google developer event. They were like, if a

1:10:16

17 year old can build apps, why can't you build

1:10:18

apps? But because of that, they put

1:10:21

me in front of like hundreds of thousands of people

1:10:23

and after being invited

1:10:25

by the chairman of Google to give speeches about

1:10:27

this, I got invited by like hundreds of universities

1:10:30

around the world. I got invited to speak at so

1:10:32

many TED talks and stuff and I built a small

1:10:34

following. I didn't want to go to university. I

1:10:37

went to San Francisco to join this program called UnCollege,

1:10:40

which I also dropped out after a couple of weeks because it was kind

1:10:42

of slow for me. But the idea was to find

1:10:44

something else to do. But during this time,

1:10:46

I was really enjoying my life because I just come

1:10:48

into money, I had all the energy, I had all

1:10:50

the free time. I was going on

1:10:52

yachts every day. Like 10 years ago or eight years ago.

1:10:54

10 years ago. I've been talking 10 years ago. I'm

1:10:57

29 now. I was telling on

1:10:59

Instagram before there were crypto ballers. Exactly.

1:11:01

I was on Instagram a long time.

1:11:04

So that's why I said I was the first

1:11:06

rich kids of Instagram. This is now an old

1:11:08

trend. That's a show called the rich kids of

1:11:10

Instagram. It's a channel for it. It was originally

1:11:12

an Instagram page. Okay. Just show all the people

1:11:14

who are flexing. And I was on that

1:11:16

page all the time because I was flexing

1:11:18

nonstop. I feel like hundreds of private jets,

1:11:20

a lot of yachts and like always like

1:11:23

with like 10 miles around me, you know,

1:11:25

bottles, models and yachts. And that was the

1:11:27

vibe. And I was enjoying my

1:11:29

life. You know, at 19, at 20, this was great. You

1:11:32

know, I was happy that I lived through

1:11:34

that. And

1:11:37

then I got invited to this TV show that was seen

1:11:39

by 100 million people. It was in like 20 airlines for

1:11:41

a while. It was actually here in the UK, Channel 4

1:11:43

that did that. Then I did a few other TV shows.

1:11:46

And then when I moved to San Francisco, I already had a... doing

1:11:49

all of this already got me a few hundred thousand followers.

1:11:52

That was actually a chemical stuff, Bitcoin for the first time because

1:11:54

Coinbase is giving $5 to refer new users. Okay.

1:11:57

So an affiliate link. An affiliate link. That's

1:12:00

how I also got into crypto. I did not think

1:12:02

that Bitcoin is going to be that big. I

1:12:05

was like, OK, I have these followers. I like

1:12:07

Bitcoin. Maybe let's refer to people. And

1:12:09

all of this five dollars that was paid in

1:12:12

Bitcoin. Here's the lesson is worth over 500

1:12:14

today. If you just held

1:12:16

onto the Bitcoin, if you tried to trade it,

1:12:18

you probably would have lost it if you just

1:12:20

kept that Bitcoin Bitcoin business of five hundred dollars

1:12:22

today. Right. And that just creates the exponential growth

1:12:24

of Bitcoin. That was my first

1:12:26

foray. I was still investing

1:12:28

very actively in Web2 when I

1:12:30

was in San Francisco in Silicon Valley. I did

1:12:32

over 100 plus Web2 investments, equity deals. During

1:12:35

this process, I ended up investing in the

1:12:37

equity round of Hedera Hashgraph, H-Bar, X-POP,

1:12:40

Ripple. These blew up, you know, did a big return. And then

1:12:42

after that, I was not looking back. I was like, this is

1:12:44

what I want to be, Web3. But

1:12:47

yeah, so KOL Capital. So

1:12:49

I knew all these KOLs. So I already I was

1:12:51

the influencer before I got into KOL. And

1:12:53

I know a lot of these from the biggest

1:12:56

influencers, crypto influencers today. I know them since before

1:12:58

they became famous because I was this influencer in

1:13:00

crypto, but I was not the one who would

1:13:02

create content. I still don't have a YouTube channel

1:13:04

today because I don't I actually was I became

1:13:06

famous because of my lifestyle. What I

1:13:08

was already doing. I didn't become famous

1:13:10

because of the content in a way. I did. I'm

1:13:12

not I'm not consistent with my content. I post like

1:13:15

once a week sometimes. Right. So I'm not

1:13:17

it's hard for me because I don't I

1:13:19

normally don't make as much money today from

1:13:21

my content creation as I would. I'm

1:13:23

more of an investor now. So that's why

1:13:25

I don't put that much time into it. But I

1:13:27

think with A.I. avatars, I just actually had this video

1:13:30

of me that I saw is me

1:13:32

and me saying something that I was like, this

1:13:34

could change the game. Now I could finally create

1:13:36

content. I don't have to create it myself. But

1:13:40

yeah, so that's what that's how I started. I met

1:13:42

all these KOLs. I know a lot of the top

1:13:44

KOLs in crypto really close in really well. And

1:13:47

that's where I started. And a

1:13:49

lot of people and what I have is access

1:13:51

to really amazing deals, really amazing

1:13:53

investment. Opportunities. That's been my biggest asset

1:13:55

today is access to amazing deals. And

1:13:57

that's because you spent the time over

1:13:59

the last. eight years in

1:14:01

this space, traveling the world and

1:14:03

making personal, non-metiverse relationships with people.

1:14:05

Personal connections. And I will tell

1:14:07

you also, this actually follows into

1:14:10

what I as an individual do full time, which

1:14:12

is Casa NFT. But, you

1:14:15

know, KOL Capital came around because

1:14:17

knowing all these KOLs, projects

1:14:19

want people, they want to

1:14:21

pay KOLs to do promotion, which

1:14:24

is I think not a landing incentive. Because

1:14:26

then you're showing something you're getting paid for is

1:14:28

not the best way. Worst

1:14:30

is, KOL Capital I set up, I went to the

1:14:33

price, I'm like, hey, I'm already investing as a VC.

1:14:36

Why don't you design a special round where

1:14:38

there's better pricing, but then I

1:14:40

can offer my audience and then I can offer the audience

1:14:42

of all these other 100 people or 200, now we

1:14:45

have 500 plus influencers that we know

1:14:47

that would then go and promote your

1:14:49

project. So we are not promoting it as

1:14:51

a paid influencer, we are promoting as an

1:14:53

investor. So we have your success in our

1:14:56

mind. And once we promote it,

1:14:58

then we do a better job because we have

1:15:00

our skin in the game. We're risking

1:15:02

our own money first when we invest in that project. And

1:15:05

two, we want to make sure that the project does

1:15:07

well because now it's our baby in a

1:15:10

way because we have some sort of investment, you have some

1:15:12

skin in the game. That's what KOL Capital started. It's only

1:15:14

really happens in Web 3. And

1:15:16

again, you and I would talk about KOLs

1:15:18

all the time, but it's really a fascinating

1:15:20

phenomenon because you get these key opinion leaders

1:15:22

with big followings. They don't just

1:15:24

promote a brand because you give them 10 grand.

1:15:26

They literally put their own money and invest it

1:15:28

in the brand, which they could lose at all

1:15:31

in the belief that it's going to go up.

1:15:33

And so when they talk about the brand, they

1:15:35

have a real vested interest and they've chosen to put their

1:15:37

money in the brand. Everyone's really

1:15:39

aligned. Web 3 style. Exactly. That's

1:15:42

you align the incentives and that's when you see maximum growth

1:15:44

and that's why you see everybody win. And

1:15:46

if most KOLs once they realize this, so I actually

1:15:49

realized a long time ago because I was an investor.

1:15:51

You know, I used to work for first I was

1:15:53

giving my hours and I realized that now as an

1:15:55

investor, I just my money works for me and

1:15:58

leverage is another thing. But now I have. the

1:16:00

leverage. I leverage of money I fixed a long

1:16:02

time ago. I realized that I can use money to work for me

1:16:04

so I have to work a lot. Leverage

1:16:06

of labor, I also realized a long

1:16:08

time ago when I sold my company then I hired

1:16:10

people who came out to me, can you help me

1:16:12

build my app? I hired all these 100 plus

1:16:14

developers who are working for me. I was 200 plus at one

1:16:16

time. People work, I don't have to

1:16:19

build code anymore myself. Leverage of code,

1:16:21

you know, you can build one thing and a

1:16:23

billion people can use it. I also realized early

1:16:25

on when I was building apps, I had millions

1:16:27

of users for my apps without actually spending a

1:16:29

single dollar in marketing it and

1:16:32

I had to just build it one time. Leverage

1:16:34

of influence is the new leverage that is

1:16:37

coming to the world today that people are

1:16:39

not realizing so much but it's leverage that

1:16:41

is very strong. So if you have influence

1:16:43

today, you can leverage that and you can

1:16:46

grow. So now I can go into a

1:16:48

company and I can negotiate

1:16:50

and say, instead of like the guys

1:16:52

who like, you know the guys who like paying at

1:16:54

the office I think for Uber or Facebook, you got

1:16:56

paid in shares and I share one of the hundreds

1:16:59

of millions. So that's the same idea. Like

1:17:01

we can go, I can go to a project and say,

1:17:03

I have two million followers, give me $10,000

1:17:06

for a post but that's the max I can make. It's $10,000.

1:17:08

I can go to them and say,

1:17:10

hey, I'm going to invest $100,000. I'm going to talk to my two million

1:17:14

followers about it plus I'm going to open my

1:17:16

doors to the people you know and I'm

1:17:18

going to grow with you and let's make this company

1:17:20

worth a lot more and then that $100,000

1:17:23

I invested, yes it can go to zero but

1:17:26

there's this chance that it goes to

1:17:28

a million or more because we are

1:17:30

all working towards it. Normally

1:17:32

most of these companies are spending money

1:17:34

on marketing, they will grow anyways. They

1:17:36

will have some adoption. Maybe

1:17:39

do a 2x or maybe do a 20x, that's

1:17:41

irrelevant but they will all grow because they're actively

1:17:43

building, actively putting time and they're actually putting resources

1:17:45

in and that's the most exciting part and

1:17:48

I think that's what, that's what, that's, that's, that's,

1:17:50

that's the KOLA Capital is pretty new. I just

1:17:52

started a couple months ago and that came around

1:17:54

after knowing all these KOLs for so long, after

1:17:57

investing, myself for so, in hundreds of

1:17:59

companies, hundreds of KOLs, understanding

1:18:01

how we can align the incentives better, because I used

1:18:03

to get approached by companies all the time to do

1:18:05

a paid post. I

1:18:08

do that sometimes, but it's not interesting. I don't manage

1:18:10

that part of like, I have a team that manages

1:18:12

all of that, and if they think the company is

1:18:15

good, they'll bring it to me, I'll say, okay, we

1:18:17

can help support that company. But that's

1:18:19

not exciting at all, because there's only so much you

1:18:21

can make. There's a limit per post. There's not more

1:18:23

than you can make that. Worse is, if I'm going

1:18:25

to invest in a company, I can go into Ground

1:18:28

Zero, help grow that company, and grow with that company,

1:18:30

there's no limit to what you can do there.

1:18:32

What's interesting, and KOL capital is at the forefront

1:18:34

of this now, is that what we're seeing in

1:18:36

Web3 now, is that KOLs now

1:18:38

are finally being valued at what they can

1:18:41

bring to the table. Exactly. And so what

1:18:43

you've seen, you brought these deals to the

1:18:45

table, where the KOLs now get better terms

1:18:47

than the VCs. And these are massive VCs,

1:18:50

guys I've had on the show from Pantera

1:18:52

and all these places, where now the KOLs

1:18:54

are getting in at later

1:18:56

rounds with better investing schedules. Because

1:18:58

value. I just told you. Crypto

1:19:01

is all about value. The value you bring,

1:19:03

the VC, what value he has, he has only

1:19:05

money. Money in crypto is very cheap.

1:19:07

Everybody has money in crypto, generally. Money

1:19:10

in crypto is very, very easy to come by.

1:19:12

I know a lot of people with a lot

1:19:14

of money in crypto, so it's very easy to

1:19:16

raise capital. That's the easy part. The hard part

1:19:18

is actually building something and growing that. And

1:19:21

who can help you with that is what is

1:19:23

value. And most of these

1:19:25

VCs today don't have a lot of value to

1:19:28

offer. They're focused on how can they

1:19:30

improve the bottom line, how can they invest in more deals.

1:19:32

But the companies don't care about that. What

1:19:35

is the KOL? He has some

1:19:38

value. He has his own community that he

1:19:40

can bring to you. That's massive. Crypto is

1:19:42

all about community. So that's a huge, huge

1:19:44

value out of the community. Then

1:19:46

he has the other value out that depends on

1:19:49

the KOL. Like you and me, we are individuals.

1:19:51

We put our name on everything. You're Brian

1:19:53

Rose. I'm Evan Lutra. Everybody knows us. What

1:19:56

are KOLs who don't have a photo for a dog

1:19:58

or a... like

1:20:00

unknown. They are famous like Mac, PDC, Pintosh,

1:20:02

but nobody knows who they are. Right. And

1:20:04

not as profile. So they don't actually lend,

1:20:06

they bring community value. But then

1:20:09

you can bring, you can add credibility. Now

1:20:11

if we are behind a project, people

1:20:13

already anyways look up to us. So then

1:20:16

they know that okay, Evan must

1:20:18

have read, I like to tell people do

1:20:20

not follow me because I take high risks. It

1:20:22

may not be for everybody. But at the same

1:20:24

time, I do my research, right? When

1:20:26

I invest in something, I know that this is

1:20:29

something I believe in. And that is look that's

1:20:31

credible for the people, you know, people look, Evan

1:20:33

has read about this, he knows that is something

1:20:35

solid. So then we can invest in this. So

1:20:37

you bring all that value that the OECs are

1:20:39

not really bringing. Because a VC's

1:20:42

name is not an individual's name. So

1:20:44

even if the project fails, nobody loses

1:20:46

reputation. With the with the KOL,

1:20:48

if I'm advising a project, if the project

1:20:50

fails, my reputation takes a hit. So I'm

1:20:53

lending my credibility when I'm getting involved with

1:20:55

the project, right? So I have to be

1:20:57

careful which project supports. So there's things like

1:20:59

that, that come into the picture, the value

1:21:01

that is hard to put a tangible

1:21:03

value to it. But it's still very,

1:21:05

very strong value. And that's why today,

1:21:07

KOLs can go to a project and

1:21:09

negotiate a better investing term than what

1:21:11

the VC would have invested two years

1:21:13

ago. I've invested a lot as VC.

1:21:16

Today, through KOL Capital, the same deals

1:21:18

where I invested three years ago, like

1:21:20

$500,000, with like a four year term,

1:21:23

resting to get my tokens, I can

1:21:25

invest at a cheaper price today as a KOL

1:21:28

with like 12 months resting for my tokens.

1:21:31

And we're doing that, right? Obviously, because of the

1:21:33

VC value before I wouldn't I didn't provide much

1:21:35

value, even though I put a chicken in the

1:21:37

investment, I made them a couple groups of some

1:21:39

I didn't provide much value. Now they expect that

1:21:41

they're going to give me this special terms and

1:21:43

I will provide that value. And I'm happy to

1:21:45

do that. You know, they've also made that progress

1:21:47

from the last three years. I was happy to

1:21:49

invest three years ago. Very happy

1:21:51

to invest now, right? So at a better term.

1:21:53

So that's what KOL Capital came out to be.

1:21:55

But like I said, this this all is

1:21:58

possible because of access. And

1:22:00

because I literally travel the world

1:22:03

meeting all these people in person, joining all these

1:22:05

groups, joining all these communities, I like

1:22:07

to even say to some point, crypto is really like

1:22:09

the mafia. If you know the right

1:22:11

godfathers, you will do really, really well because they

1:22:14

know which projects are coming up first and then they

1:22:16

can bring you into that. And that's

1:22:18

what came around to me

1:22:20

starting Casa NFT, which is my... Basically,

1:22:23

the idea is to create like a soul house where we

1:22:25

have three people in the real world, not in the metaverse,

1:22:27

right? So now if you go to a soul house, you

1:22:30

go to a members club, you know what to expect. You

1:22:32

know, you go to animals, you expect to see certain type of

1:22:35

businessmen, you see certain type of modelers stuff. You go to a

1:22:37

soul house, you meet an artist, you meet a creative. You know

1:22:39

what to expect when you go to

1:22:41

these places. I want to create these

1:22:45

safe places for web3 and crypto. People are interested in web3

1:22:47

and crypto. They can go up... If they're any part of

1:22:49

the world, they can go to a Casa NFT and

1:22:51

they know the people who are staying there or who

1:22:53

are chilling there have at least some... They either are

1:22:55

already successful in web3 or crypto or

1:22:58

I have an interest in web3 or crypto. And

1:23:00

that's the idea behind Casa NFT is

1:23:02

to create these real... And the biggest

1:23:04

reason for... I can get a lot

1:23:06

of good deals for today is because people

1:23:08

who start these companies, they call me and say, Evan,

1:23:10

I want you to invest in my company early on.

1:23:12

And the reason they did that is

1:23:15

because of the memories and the moments that have

1:23:17

had this with people in different parts of

1:23:19

the world when we have that. I think that's the... People

1:23:21

ask me what's my secret to success and I think it's

1:23:23

basically taking care of people. It's like...

1:23:26

It's making sure people around me have a great time. People

1:23:29

will always remember how you make them feel. They will

1:23:31

forget what you said or what you did, but

1:23:33

they will always remember how you made them feel. And ever since

1:23:35

I was young, I... Because I made my money early, I was

1:23:37

able to do that. I'm fortunate for that.

1:23:40

I've always loved to host people. I've always loved

1:23:42

to host parties. Because

1:23:44

anyways, I wouldn't expect my

1:23:46

friends to be able to have the same fun unless I was hosting them. Because they

1:23:48

don't have the same liquidity that I had. From

1:23:51

a young age, from like 17 basically, I've been

1:23:53

hosting parties where I would pay for everybody and

1:23:55

invite people and come and have fun with me.

1:23:57

So that's the idea. by

1:24:00

doing this again and again and again in

1:24:02

over many places and then first

1:24:04

doing it by friends from high school and middle

1:24:06

school then doing it when I was living in

1:24:09

San Francisco and then eventually now trying to do

1:24:11

the conference around the world and throwing parties with

1:24:13

like 50 plus events where I was throwing the

1:24:15

best party every night so that was happening better

1:24:17

than the official party and people would have come

1:24:19

to my party in their time that

1:24:22

built me up to this network of people

1:24:24

where we created amazing memories with all these

1:24:26

amazing founders who have also been in this

1:24:28

space for a long time so

1:24:30

that's why people now call me when they build

1:24:32

the next company and they're like we want you

1:24:34

to be in the company so we can keep

1:24:36

coming to your parties keep coming

1:24:38

having these moments together I think

1:24:40

that's what Casa NFT came to be is like

1:24:43

how do I remove myself from the equation because

1:24:45

these parties that are great also great to some

1:24:47

extent because of me right I'm there I want

1:24:49

to have a great time myself so I'm happy

1:24:51

to make a great time people around me also

1:24:53

because I'm happy to make the setup so everybody

1:24:55

has a great time but how

1:24:58

to remove myself from the equation and

1:25:00

still have this setup so people can

1:25:02

still have these great times and great memories

1:25:04

at a Casa NFT which is

1:25:06

basically House of NFTs by Ivan and

1:25:08

then they can still think of me when the next deal happens

1:25:10

but not and then it goes bigger than me the

1:25:13

other people that meet there also the create memories and

1:25:15

they create companies together and they

1:25:17

do deals together and maybe they think of me when

1:25:19

they deal at Casa NFT I'll give you a

1:25:22

great example right so Casa so we started Casa

1:25:24

NFT about almost three years ago now in India

1:25:27

that was the first one where I

1:25:29

had like the gallery I was a very

1:25:31

modern marble high-end you know Japanese toilets everything

1:25:33

top shelf but it was in

1:25:35

India in Delhi where I was born and

1:25:37

raised right and then I actually opened the

1:25:39

world's first blockchain center in Delhi also early

1:25:41

in 2018 in the last bull

1:25:43

cycle it was basically a blockchain center to like

1:25:45

people come in know about blockchain something people did

1:25:47

similar in New York I did the first one

1:25:49

in India and then

1:25:51

that I closed that didn't do as well because

1:25:54

the people have put in place for not the

1:25:56

right people but then I

1:25:58

opened the Casa NFT which is a NFT I don't

1:26:00

want people to be exposed to that. Then

1:26:02

I was in Tulum, COVID came, and then I

1:26:04

was in Tulum. I

1:26:06

went to Tulum because that was the only place open in the world. I

1:26:09

was thinking COVID would be over forever. I was like, I've got

1:26:11

to bring a Casa NFT here. Because crypto people are all about

1:26:13

freedom. So a lot of people end up there. So

1:26:16

that's why I bought a boutique hotel on the beach. She turned

1:26:18

that into a Casa NFT pretty quickly. And

1:26:20

today, the memories and the moments that have come

1:26:22

from now we have in Puerto Rico a location.

1:26:25

We bought a huge line in Zanzibar. We're going to build a

1:26:27

city. The

1:26:29

idea is to have an airstrip. We have a

1:26:31

helipad where we have different villas. We have a

1:26:34

binance villa, OKX villa, Polygon villa, DWS villa.

1:26:37

All the big stakeholders, market maker exchanges, agency. When you

1:26:39

get into crypto, you can land into the city straight

1:26:41

or you can fly in or land with the helicopter

1:26:43

and you can knock on every door. That's what you

1:26:45

would have. And then the idea is to create a

1:26:47

small city in that way. If it works, maybe eventually

1:26:50

go for a Bitcoin country. But

1:26:52

that's why we're trying to do a small proof of concept first. The

1:26:56

moments that have come to these places that

1:26:58

have happened, like for example Casa NFT Tulum is amazing.

1:27:01

Pink Floyd came by and they

1:27:04

played for free because they had a great time. So

1:27:07

many people have come to their place and

1:27:10

had these great memories. I have not been

1:27:12

there myself. Sometimes I'm having FOMO. Why am

1:27:14

I not there? There are so many good

1:27:16

parties happening. I've had major FOMO now because

1:27:18

of what I've built basically where people are

1:27:20

having amazing parties which I'm not a part

1:27:22

of. I'm getting huge

1:27:24

FOMO when I'm going to a conference now

1:27:27

in Romania on this weekend to speak at a

1:27:29

crypto event because I know the opportunity cost is

1:27:32

so high. But I have huge FOMO that

1:27:34

I'm not a Casa NFT because there's a massive party going

1:27:36

on there that I could be a part of. But

1:27:39

I know I'm young right now so I wouldn't put in the time when I

1:27:41

can. And I know that right now the

1:27:43

opportunity cost is just way too high not to be in

1:27:45

the right places. I'll party next few years when they went

1:27:47

back into their market. Yeah, I was following you on Instagram

1:27:49

and I was looking at all this crazy stuff you're doing

1:27:51

in Tulum and I was like what is this thing? It's

1:27:54

not just Evan's place because there's a lot of other people hanging

1:27:56

out and then there's DJs and it seems

1:27:58

like there's a party every night. You got your

1:28:00

cold plunge and then you got it. So

1:28:03

that's what you created. You bought beachfront property in

1:28:05

these places and it's Casa NFT. Exactly. We have

1:28:07

in Puerto Rico, I don't go to Puerto Rico

1:28:09

much myself. We actually filmed the TV show at

1:28:11

the Casa NFT there recently. We filmed

1:28:13

the TV show at Casa NFT in Tulum also recently. I

1:28:15

think some of the guests have been on your show at

1:28:17

Eunice. She was one of the

1:28:19

contestants. Yeah. So like we have, so the

1:28:21

idea is it's a safe place for

1:28:24

about three people to connect. So normally right now

1:28:26

we have like seven rooms in the Tulum property.

1:28:28

We have seven rooms in the India property. We

1:28:31

have 500 in Puerto Rico and Zanzibar is going to be 120 room hotel,

1:28:33

120 villas. Bali

1:28:36

is again going to be 10 rooms. The idea is not

1:28:38

to build a hotel. It's to be a safe place where

1:28:40

three people can come and really connect and spend a few days.

1:28:43

We also don't want people coming in and out. We throw a lot of

1:28:45

parties. We have, you know, 100, 200 people coming

1:28:47

into the parties all the time. We had a great New Year's

1:28:50

Eve party at the Casa NFT Tulum, 400 people showed up. So

1:28:53

you can always connect, but the idea is people come and stay. Like

1:28:55

if you travel to Tulum, you travel to Puerto Rico, you travel

1:28:57

to any of these places. You go

1:28:59

book a Ritz Carlton or a Sheraton or

1:29:01

St. Regis or whichever Hilton. The

1:29:04

idea is if you're in Web 3, you may want to stay at the

1:29:06

Casa NFT because you would get to connect with these people.

1:29:08

You go to the ice bar, you go

1:29:10

to the gym, you go to the beach, you

1:29:12

would meet those kind of people around you and

1:29:14

you don't know what. Community. And

1:29:16

I've had people that have come and stayed and

1:29:18

they've met each other. They didn't know who they

1:29:20

were before. They were connected, my friends, but different.

1:29:23

They met each other and ended up starting companies together because

1:29:26

they met at Casa NFT and they found solutions. They

1:29:28

spent like a month, they had such a great time. They're like,

1:29:31

we should start this company together. And that's what

1:29:33

they did. And that's not just one. That's happened

1:29:35

multiple times over. So literally multiple times people have

1:29:37

come and stayed and met and then

1:29:39

they're starting companies together. And then most

1:29:42

people who come and stay have a good time. They

1:29:44

all have, they enjoy. The focus for me

1:29:46

is like I don't look at the bottom line at

1:29:48

Casa NFT. It's basically like it runs at a loss

1:29:50

permanently. Like all the, I don't really charge. So

1:29:54

eventually I want to do NFT collection, which

1:29:56

limits it. So it's like we want about 3000 NFTs

1:29:58

if you're an NFT holder. Only then

1:30:00

you can invite somebody else to come, or only then you

1:30:02

can come. That's two-way thing. It

1:30:04

limits the community, so controls who the members

1:30:06

are, and then those members which we

1:30:09

select can invite other cool people. So

1:30:11

it's a way to grow, but also control. But

1:30:14

right now, it's basically just self-finance. For

1:30:16

me, it's the way to diversify like 5%, 10% of my

1:30:18

wealth in crypto into

1:30:20

real estate. Keeps my mom happy, gives

1:30:22

me a peace of mind. Tomorrow, if I go, I

1:30:25

don't know, get a disease and I can't function anymore,

1:30:27

I have this place that I can go and

1:30:29

always live in. And it's peaceful and it's amazing. I don't have

1:30:31

to worry about things. So it's like, gives me a peace of

1:30:33

mind, it's a way to diversify. But I

1:30:35

don't really care about Kata and his business model because

1:30:37

it almost always loses money. But

1:30:39

eventually, I want to create community because

1:30:41

that community will make the money, right?

1:30:44

Example, I would tell you a crazy story. So

1:30:47

I had this human plate dinner a few,

1:30:50

couple weeks ago at this Kata NSD where I had this,

1:30:52

there was this lady who was very sexually free, and she's

1:30:54

like, I want people to eat off me, I've seen on

1:30:56

Instagram, I want to have sushi on me, I want somebody

1:30:59

to eat on me. I'm like, okay, let's organize, I would

1:31:01

love that. So I did that and then

1:31:03

another guy started, he's like, this is amazing, it's a

1:31:05

human plate dinner. I also want to be a

1:31:07

part of it. I'm like, oh, we already did it. But

1:31:09

he was like, this was a guy who

1:31:11

started a really good company recently that I want to

1:31:13

be a investor in. I'm like, get me some allocation

1:31:15

in your company. And I will switch

1:31:18

you out with a week long stay at

1:31:20

Kata NSD and I will throw in

1:31:22

the human dinner for free. And he's like,

1:31:24

all right, I'm refunding out of VC. I'm

1:31:27

getting you in right now. This is a real

1:31:29

life situation that happened less than a week

1:31:31

ago. A company that's listing it like

1:31:33

a week, where it's in

1:31:35

the SaaS, the agreement that aside

1:31:37

the KPI, he put, because he has

1:31:40

a co-founder, he made it, put it twice. One

1:31:43

week beach day, Kata NSD, any

1:31:45

of the locations with the human

1:31:47

plate dinner included for both co-founders.

1:31:51

So there you go. It's working.

1:31:54

I mean, I could have lost a lot of money

1:31:56

doing Kata NSD, but maybe this one investment, I was

1:31:58

just able to get in, we'll do. Well, I'm pretty

1:32:00

sure in the bull market will pay for like, you

1:32:02

know, the next 10 20 parties do you do?

1:32:06

It's not a tangible value. You can't put a number on it.

1:32:08

You can't put any car You can't go to a C for

1:32:10

one time to do this. That's why there's no CFO But

1:32:14

it works it works long term you get like I

1:32:16

said you give value you got value by value back

1:32:19

How do you stay hungry Evan because I've gotten to

1:32:21

know you better last couple months and like you know

1:32:24

You've been in this business for a long time You've

1:32:26

made a ton of money But like

1:32:28

you're you act as if you just got

1:32:30

in this biz and I've seen your deal

1:32:32

flow and I've seen the way you You

1:32:34

operate and it's like almost like every hour

1:32:37

You want to be in on the next deal and

1:32:40

the next deal on the next deal and it's it's

1:32:42

nice to be around It's refreshing to be around but

1:32:44

it's surprising I mean, I think it comes down to

1:32:46

like I actually I'm very curious and I'm passionate about

1:32:48

this I have a lot of passion for technology I

1:32:50

like to see I like to understand

1:32:53

what people are doing with technology and how they're doing it

1:32:55

And I like to understand how they're using technology to stop these

1:32:57

ideas and it makes me better to

1:33:00

be able to do what I want to do because I'm

1:33:02

not doing a boring job like a VC

1:33:04

or a hedge fund manager who cares about the bottom line

1:33:06

that I don't care if my portfolio Like if I sell

1:33:08

the token it like I'm not trying to time exactly when

1:33:10

I sell I don't care if it goes 10 20% Difference

1:33:13

doesn't make a difference to me. I have to

1:33:16

do this because I'm actually interested in those companies

1:33:18

that are coming out I like these

1:33:20

companies. I like that because that's why I

1:33:22

like to be in blockchain Like I said is

1:33:24

a smart people in the world is the most

1:33:26

innovation that's happening out of anywhere else is

1:33:28

in technology There's innovation happening in food,

1:33:30

but they're not designing how to create

1:33:32

a new recipe That's not

1:33:34

exciting for me in technology. It's not

1:33:37

to create new food all together But sort

1:33:39

of create like food that is the third of create chicken

1:33:41

that it's not chicken that is exciting to

1:33:43

me, right? So I've always been

1:33:45

very curious in technology. Generally, I

1:33:48

got my start when I was young and it's the

1:33:50

same Same qualities that have

1:33:52

even today make me passionate. They're interesting. You

1:33:54

know, I was when I was 12 my

1:33:57

father He's

1:33:59

an entrepreneur himself One of the

1:34:01

businesses he started failed. It

1:34:03

was a call center. He had 100 plus

1:34:05

200 computers that were there that

1:34:09

people would leave to do the BPO services

1:34:11

from. But then the call center failed. He

1:34:13

had to close it down. But he would

1:34:15

still go to the office and have my

1:34:17

summer break. I would go with him and I

1:34:19

would have all these computers and start playing

1:34:21

with them. I started writing a blog about

1:34:23

having these computers and connecting them, making a

1:34:25

bigger computer, more powerful. I started blogging about

1:34:27

that. And LinkedIn's blogs became the

1:34:29

most read blog on LinkedIn's blogging platform,

1:34:32

Pulse. It was

1:34:34

like a top read blog, a top read

1:34:36

article multiple times of the day. That

1:34:39

was my first interest in technology, but only because

1:34:41

I was curious. I could have also

1:34:44

gone to play football or basketball. When

1:34:46

I was my dad, I could also watch TV while I was sitting

1:34:48

there. But I was curious about those computers

1:34:50

since a very young age and I started

1:34:52

playing with those computers. I

1:34:54

started writing about them and then that thing would

1:34:57

lead to another and then Apple announced

1:34:59

they're coming over to the App Store and I was like, I want to

1:35:01

make an app for my blog. How

1:35:03

do I do that? And that led me to be interested in making

1:35:06

apps. And I was one of the first

1:35:08

few people to build apps for the iPhone. And this

1:35:10

was a time when there was literally nobody building apps.

1:35:12

There was no competition. And I built

1:35:14

apps that had millions of downloads. I had over 10

1:35:16

apps that were top 10 on the App Store worldwide

1:35:19

without spending $1 in marketing, right? I

1:35:22

made the app for the Icy Cricket

1:35:24

World Cup in 2016. In 2011, Icy

1:35:27

Cricket World Cup app and I

1:35:29

was 16 at that time. And

1:35:31

IcyC sued me because I

1:35:33

did not know I can't use their logo on the

1:35:35

app icon. It was a

1:35:37

copyright thing. And Icy, so it's very interesting.

1:35:39

So I built apps before and

1:35:41

I knew that Apple goes on holiday at the

1:35:44

end of December. Apple is like,

1:35:46

they don't care. And to get an Apple app published,

1:35:48

you have to go through a very strict approval process.

1:35:50

Now it's a lot easier. Back in the day, it

1:35:52

was very hard. And you had to spend like three

1:35:54

weeks talking to the Apple team and fixing any bugs

1:35:56

and you're not having any hacks in the app. ICC

1:36:00

World Cup was starting early and

1:36:03

ICC couldn't get their app approved in time.

1:36:05

I already knew that because I had experience

1:36:07

building other apps. And

1:36:09