"Believe in Something" with 1confirmation Founder Nick Tomaino | ZEROPOD S2 E6
What do you get when you cross a middleschool sneakerhead, a Bitcoin pizza-esque 30 million dollar engagement ring, and a knack for spotting the next big thing onchain? You get Nick Tomaino, crypto OG and founder of iconic crypto venture fund 1confirmation. On this episode of ZEROPOD, host Toady Hawk digs in with Nick about working at Coinbase in the very early days, the passion for collecting that led him from copping kicks and rare books to NFTs and ERCs, and founding and running one of the most successful early investment funds in the space. Nick also talks candidly about his bull case for Degen, Farcaster and Ethereum (he thinks one of those will even one day flip Bitcoin), why Ethereum doesn’t need a Michael Saylor, and what he thinks is the best advice for new investors in the space: just believe in something. --- Timestamps: 0:00 – Intro: Find Something More to Believe In Nick shares advice for new traders and the importance of conviction beyond money. 1:02 – Welcome to ZEROPOD: Meet Nick Tomaino Introduction to Nick’s background as an early Coinbase employee and founder of 1confirmation. 2:02 – Nick’s Sneaker-Collecting Days How basketball and sneaker culture shaped Nick’s early passion for collecting. 3:39 – The Collector Gene: Rare Books and Americana Nick’s family history of collecting and how it influenced his love for rare books and later NFTs. 6:42 – Crypto vs. Rare Books: Liquidity and the Future of Collectibles Nick compares the illiquidity of traditional collectibles to the fluidity of NFTs. 10:21 – College Days: Economics and a Focus on Making Money Why Nick studied economics and his early ambitions to optimize for financial success. 12:42 – Learning About Venture Capital How Fred Wilson’s blog inspired Nick’s interest in venture capital and crypto. 15:16 – Joining Coinbase: Early Days of Bitcoin Adoption Nick’s journey to Coinbase in 2013, hustling his way into the company, and working on business development. 20:03 – Starting 1confirmation: Supporting Early Crypto Projects Nick explains the genesis of 1confirmation and its focus on being the first check into game-changing projects. 22:00 – Why the Name 1confirmation? The blockchain-inspired reasoning behind the fund’s name. 23:49 – Opensea and CryptoKitties: Early Investments Nick’s experience with CryptoKitties and why he believed in Opensea’s potential. 26:47 – Degen: Why Social Tipping Matters The evolution of tipping mechanisms in crypto and their role in driving adoption. 30:36 – Thoughts on Farcaster and Decentralized Social Media Nick discusses Farcaster as the best decentralized social network and its role in enabling financial opportunities. 36:39 – Farcaster Projects: Clanker, Anoncast, and More Nick evaluates recent Farcaster projects and the importance of experimentation. 40:04 – The Value of In-Feed NFT Minting Nick shares why he believes microtransactions and NFT minting are the next big things for creators. 45:08 – Ethereum’s Strength and Long-Term Potential Why Nick believes Ethereum could flip Bitcoin and the importance of innovation over narratives. 49:12 – The Importance of Skin in the Game How crypto allows more people to have ownership and take risks with real consequences. 52:03 – The Future of Farcaster: Financial Opportunities Nick’s vision for how Farcaster can thrive by giving users more ways to make money. 53:03 – What’s Exciting in 2025? Pro-Crypto Policies and Innovation Nick shares his optimism about potential regulatory changes and new product developments. 56:00 – Advice for Newcomers: Conviction and Curiosity Final advice for those new to crypto: find something to believe in beyond making money. 58:14 – Wrap-Up: Believe in Something More Closing remarks and gratitude for the conversation. -- Podcast recorded by Toady Hawk, edited by Toady Hawk and Santhosh. Hosted by Toady Hawk. Music by Toady Hawk, SuperTightWoody & Suno AI. Produced by Zero Rights Media. This content is zero rights reserved (cc0), please remix and reuse it in any way you like!
Choreographing a stronger community with Clarence Ford
Clarence Ford started out as an athlete; first as a competitive hockey player, then transitioning to dance as a choreographer for the world-renowned Cirque du Soleil. After seeing the power of community-building first-hand within Cirque du Soleil, Clarence embarked on a journey of creating circus programming for underserved youth in Toronto. He launched a non-for-profit called Square Circle, with a mission to “help students develop communication, interpersonal, artistic, and physical skills in a safe, collaborative, and fun environment”. Through educational partnerships and community workshops, Clarence hopes to build out his business by tapping into as many youth groups as possible in Toronto and beyond. On this week’s episode, Clarence sits down with Fred and Derek to discuss new avenues to explore expansion and growth of Square Circle. They speak to building a solid foundation for his business - from considering a strategic board, to finding mentorship, and building community as a new entrepreneur. Finally, they discuss strategies on how to manage burn out while navigating multiple priorities to get your business off the ground.
Rebuilding the Creator Economy
For centuries, creators have given up a big share of their earnings for a chance to reach audiences. In 18th century England, authors’ desires to break free of censorship and exercise the power of the written word led to the growth of modern copyright law, a key pillar of the creator economy. But to this day, publishers and distributors of content have enormous power over how creators make money and grow with their audiences.What if that didn’t have to be the case? What if, by “going onchain” through blockchain-based apps and platforms, creators could gain complete ownership over their content and create new revenue models, where they (not publishers or platforms) could set the terms?We’ll examine what it means to create, consume, and connect onchain — and find out how this next evolution of the online world could rebuild the creator economy as we know it.
#18 - @dish
wrench guy for @clanker 🤖🔧👨🏼🔧
Crossing the Rubicon with Opacity
In the inaugural episode of Rubicon, hosts Hersh and Dawufi dive into cryptocurrency’s potential to solve real-world problems within the Web2 landscape. They discuss the limitations of DeFi, viewing it more as speculation than transformation, and emphasize the importance of building products that truly benefit users while challenging the dominance of big tech. The conversation covers the historical significance of "Rubicon," composability, and the need to separate identity from application layers to empower users. They explore the challenges of creating decentralized solutions, the importance of verifiable data, and how Opacity could disrupt markets by giving users control, ultimately advocating for a more equitable digital future. Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 00:34 - User-Centric Solutions in the Web2 Landscape 05:50 - Early Journey into Crypto and APIs 08:22 - API Manipulation and First Crypto Ventures 10:29 - Innovative Uses of APIs in Crypto 11:29 - Decentralized Solutions and Market Fit Challenges 13:23 - Tackling Decentralized Identity and Verifiable Data 18:14 - Securing Signed Data and Addressing Verifiability 21:26 - From Social Media Skeptic to Identity Pioneer 25:58 - Future of Web 3: Fundraising and Community Building 31:01 - Consumer DeFi Disrupting Intermediated Markets 33:23 - Rethinking the Future of Business 35:41 - Social Elements in Crypto Applications 40:44 - Evolution of Ideas in Web 2.0 vs. Web 3.0 43:06 - Crypto's Cambrian Explosion of Ideas Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.
Going HIGHER | Martin Anquetil
In this episode we chat with Martin Antequil, the creator behind onchain brand HIGHER as well as the onchain agent Aether. We dive into Martin’s early work on NBA Top Shot at Dapper Labs, his thoughts on the evolution of the NFT market, his time building within the Nouns DAO community, “headless brands” and the emergence of HIGHER, building Aether, personality design & much more.
Writing, Podcasts and Minting Base Colors — JAKE
JAKE is a pseudo anonymous internet creator. Going with the classic blue, colour code #0000FF as his pfp. Host at Pod Of Jake where he’s interviewed almost 200 guests over 4 years. Most recently Jacob from Zora and others such as Vitalik Buterin, pplpleasr and Mark Cuban. Writer at Blog of Jake, where he’s published about creativity and writing, documenting his experiences as a podcaster, observing what’s happening on the internet, reviewing crypto news, thinking about how to learn and build. JAKE is also the founder of Base Colors, a new onchain collection where you can mint unique colour codes on Base and give them a name, an interesting primitive which many people are starting to play around and experiment with. We talk about the benefits of writing online. Go behind the scenes experiences of hosting a podcast. Thoughts on the crypto scene, Bitcoin and pseudo anon identities on the internet, decentralized social like Farcaster, and thinking too much about Colors. ___ UFO Sponsor Resources ↑ Higher — https://www.aimhigher.net/ 🌐 International Meme Fund — https://imf.bz/ --- @jake @ufoclub.eth @hollins For more episodes, go to ufo.fm
Electronic Music Scenes — Sound Of Fractures
Jamie Reddington is an electronic music producer, consultant and lecturer from London who recently released his debut album Scenes. His music is shaped by hiphop, UK dance music and soul. Leaning into telling stories, with textures and samples captured from his phone, featuring the sound of his daughter’s heartbeat. The record was released as a co-creation. ‘Over 350 memories were submitted and turned into Scenes, capturing a moment in time. People stopped, took time out of their lives and engaged in a process that connected music and emotions.' We talk about the past, present and future of music on the internet. What's most interesting for artists right now? ___ UFO Sponsor Resources ↑ Higher — https://www.aimhigher.net/ 🌐 International Meme Fund — https://imf.bz/ --- @soundoffractures @ufoclub.eth @hollins For more episodes, go to ufo.fm
Exploring the Memecoin Supercycle with IMF — Gami, Clouted
Gami and Clouted are core contributors from International Meme Fund (IMF) and $MONEY. Their team believes it is now crucial to have native liquidity and financial infrastructure for the meme sector. They're both from Sydney and have shared interests in defi financial engineering, game theory and the memecoin phenomonen. We talk about financial nihilism. Memes as emergent properties of the internet. Why do some meme assets succeed when the vast majority fail? How do you choose the tokens that go up? (no financial advice). The internet is stranger than you think.
Interpreting Technology with AIxDESIGN — Nadia Piet
Nadia Piet is Founder and Creative Lead of AIxDESIGN, a global community conducting critical AI research for the benefit of people, not profits. She's a designer, researcher, organiser and faculty member at ELISAVA's Design for Responsible AI. We talk about many things artificial intelligence. AlphaGO and Move 37. AI models trained on creative assets without permission. Commodification of digital life. What's causing the rapidly improving visual quality of generative AI such as DALL-E and Midjourney? Big picture, what are constructive ways to be thinking about AI?
A brief history of Ethereum hard forks
This episode is a brief history of Ethereum hard forks, from the early days of the Frontier thawing to the more recent Dencun upgrade. Sources: https://ethereum.org/en/history/
Welcome to ETH Daily
Welcome to your daily Ethereum news briefing. Dive into the latest on Ethereum, DAOs, DeFi, Staking, LRTs, and L2 rollups. Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss a beat: https://ethdaily.io Follow Us X: x.com/ethdaily Lens: hey.xyz/u/ethdaily Farcaster: warpcast.com/ethdaily.eth
SEC Sues Consensys Over MetaMask
The SEC sues Consensys over MetaMask Staking. Arbitrum proposes to implement Timeboost. EigenLayer proposes the creation of a Uniswap V4 AVS. And Igloo acquires the Frame L2 project. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/497
Ep 196 - Dude With 3 Jets Lectures Us About Climate Change
In this episode, the hosts explore the chaotic world of meme coins and the broader crypto space, highlighting controversies and scams. Arman shares his frustrations about the state of the industry, while Stephen discusses the future of celebrity cryptos. The conversation shifts to political gaslighting, analyzing statements from the Biden administration and discussing Eric Weinstein's theories. They also delve into how opinions evolve, touching on topics like political narratives and personal development. Personal stories, including Stephen's charming pick-up move and a hilarious conspiracy theory about a 'fake Biden,' add a captivating touch to this thought-provoking episode.
