Shorts | Julian Holguin: Why Content is The Hook
This short highlights one of my favorite moments from my conversation with Julian Holguiin of Doodles and Jesse Pollak of Base. Content is the hook that will usher in billions of users from web2 into web3. Doodles knows this best, and with Julian's prolific background in media and music, coupled with their acquisition of a major animation studio, they're perfectly positioned to execute on this strategy. Listen to the full episode: https://pods.media/mint-podcast/doodles-moves-to-base-ft-jullian-holguin-and-jesse-pollak
Charlie Crown on Music Crowdfunding Mechanics
Mint Season 4 episode 10 welcomes Charlie Crown, the Miami-based, Colombian DJ & producer who has released tracks through Sony Music, Dim Mak, and PRMD; and garnered over 25+ million streams in the process. He’s received nods from some of dance music’s biggest names including The Chainsmokers, Steve Aoki, Martin Garrix, and Illenium; and shared stages with other incredible artists like Zomboy, Mija, and Le Youth; in addition to massive performances at Club Space Miami and Life in Color. His most recent single, “Sinking” with Bronze Whale reached the top 25 on Apple Music’s Electronic charts in over 40 countries and peaked at No. 28 on the US Electronic chart. Charlie Crown is endorsed by McDSP, FabFilter, and Sonarworks audio plugins. He’s also deep in the world of where music meets web3. I wanted to have him on because, (1) I backed his project, and (2) his crowdfund mechanics are quite different from what we’re used to seeing. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
How Coinbase Might Bring 1 Billion People Onchain Using Its Smart Wallet
Coinbase’s “onchain summer” has kicked off with the launch of its new smart wallet. This interview with Luke Youngblood, founding contributor to Moonwell, gives a peek at how it’s sweetening the pot for developers and users alike. In this episode, Youngblood describes how smart wallets are different from traditional wallets, how they do away with past security issues, and the more minor potential risks that still do exist with smart wallets. He also gives details on the ways that Coinbase is trying to use its smart wallet to get users onchain: making it much easier to transact onchain directly from their Coinbase accounts, subsidizing gas costs for certain dapps, and making sure everything is web-accessible. Plus, he explains why Moonwell chose Base, how it is branching out to non-crypto native DeFi users, such as populations that only have mobile phones and not desktop computers in geographies like Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and how the DeFi lending protocol differentiates itself from bigger ones that have established a beachhead on Base.
a16z crypto founder Chris Dixon's new book highlights how blockchains can lead to a more equitable internet
Chris Dixon is a managing partner at a16z and the founder of a16z crypto. In this episode, Dixon gives an overview of his new book, Read Write Own: Building the Next Generation of the Internet, and explains how blockchains have the potential to create more equatable online experiences. OUTLINE 00:00 Background 08:04 New Book 11:13 Crypto Skeptics 14:56 Tech Centralization 19:53 Web2 vs Web3 24:11 Networks vs Tokens 31:12 Platform Ownership 33:49 Platform Take Rates 37:49 Consumer Crypto 40:49 Regulatory Uncertainty 47:29 Venture Landscape
Erik Voorhees' New Venture: Why AI Desperately Needs Privacy and Uncensorability
Erik Voorhees, a crypto OG, has launched Venice, a private, uncensorable, open-source competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, powered by a decentralized crypto network. In the episode, Erik and Venice’s COO Teana Baker-Taylor delve into the problems with censorship and data in current AI agents, including how they create honeypots of information about users’ search history for hackers, or that they can be absurdly politically correct, such as refusing to create images of Caucasian people. As they point out, there’s also the risk that the companies managing them could be censoring the models to please the Chinese government, in order to access the market in that country. They talk about their plan for Venice to gain market share, considering that DuckDuckGo, a privacy-preserving competitor to Google, has a much smaller market share. And they explain why they intend for Venice to eventually use the compute of Morpheus, or other decentralized crypto-powered compute networks. They also critique the SEC’s current regulatory approach to crypto, calling it “a joke.” Additionally, they explore the concept of AI agents using cryptocurrencies as their primary currency.
NFT Ticket Case Study: Queen George on Growth Hacking Collectors
This episode, from Mint Season 4, Episode 21, is a pivotal moment in my journey as a web3 founder. It significantly contributed to the development of Bello through the insights gained from my conversation with Queen George, a crypto-native jazz-pop artist, who has been exploring web3 since April 2021. We discuss our strategy in building a collector base in web3 and the success of her live concert at ETH Denver in February 2022, where she effectively minted tickets as NFTs, attracting 120 collectors. This conversation documented our thoughtful experimentation with NFTs and planted the seed for a whole new chapter in my life.
Why EigenLayer Gave Away More Tokens After Widespread Criticism of Its Stakedrop
EigenLayer has been in the news this week after it announced its ‘stakedrop,’ where it will distribute EIGEN tokens to early users of the restaking platform. Sreeram Kannan, founder and CEO of EigenLayer, and Robert Drost, CEO and executive director of the Eigen Foundation, discuss the launch of the token, a “universal intersubjective work token” and how it allows for slashing, or penalizing, for externally observable faults, such as data unavailability. The Eigen Foundation, a non-profit entity based in the Cayman Islands, was also recently established to grow the protocol and assist in creating a decentralized community. They also address criticisms of the token's launch, including geoblocking and the initial non-transferability of stakedrops for the community and explain why they decided to allocate an additional 100 EIGEN tokens for all participants in the stakedrop. Plus, they reveal a target date by when a decision about the token unlock date should be made.
Ep.27: LIVE FROM FARCON/FREE WIFI ft. Dan Romero, Paragraph acquires Mirror, Titles
A weekly rundown show where extremely online individuals broadly explore (romanticize, even) new consumer internet experiences. Join us live and online on Fridays @ 1PM PST live.seedclub.xyz Hosts: Josh Cornelius & Jess Sloss Web VJ: Peacenode Production: Cheryl Douglass None of this is financial or tax advice.
Alex Masmej Talks $DEGEN: Fueling Drakula's Growth and the Onchain Creator Economy
Join us in this episode as we sit down with Alex Masmej, the brain behind Drakula and a key player in the farcaster ecosystem. From his early days of conceptualizing Showtime as the 'Instagram of NFTs' to pioneering Drakula, Alex's journey is nothing short of remarkable. Drakula, now making waves as the 'TikTok of Web3', has seen an explosive start with over $30M in transactions in just two weeks, introducing a new and engaging way for fans to support video creators. Alex returns to the podcast to share the lessons learned from pivoting Showtime to creating Drakula, highlighting the strategic moves, go-to-market strategy, and the decision to adopt $DEGEN as the native currency of the app. I hope you enjoy our conversation and our genesis episode on Pods!
