From Hollywood to Web3: Redefining Crypto Navigation with Ben Kurland

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like This Old Marketing. Today, we'll be breaking down from Hollywood to Web3, redefining crypto navigation. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Ben Curlin and to EO Fire Studios, ex-Hollywood actor. Ben is the CEO of DYOR Labs. He's a blockchain expert specializing in Web3 adoption, digital asset management, and DeFi. He empowers investors with AI-driven insights and advanced research tools for informed decisions.

0:39And today, Foundation, we'll talk about empowering new investors, empowering the crypto world, making crypto seamless and safe, and the future of crypto, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ben and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lance, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. AI technology is transforming the way we do business, and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business.

1:11Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Over 40 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire. Ben, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, everybody. Thanks for having me on the show, John. I'm really excited to be here. That's a great question. I would say most people talk about things like hard work and being smart and having a great idea.

1:56I think that one thing that's not really talked about often enough is the idea that when you're working in a fast-paced world, it's not only okay to make mistakes, it's essential. It's better to do something and to put it out there in the world and then to refine it than it is to ideate on things over and over again. Fire Nation, wise words from an individual who's had quite a story, as I mentioned in the intro, we're talking about from Hollywood to Web3 and the redefinition, the redefining of crypto navigation. Now, you have quite the interesting journey, Ben. I mean, from Hollywood to Web3. Tell us about that story.

2:44Tell us about that transition. You know, Hollywood is all about storytelling. I became impassioned about this from a very young age, just the power of stories and their ability to unite us as individuals, to have a better understanding of people. I think it's an amazing form of conflict resolution in the world and something that is often underused. As I've gotten older or was getting older, I wanted to make more of an impact. And I was looking for areas to do so. And at that point in time, about roughly about seven or eight years ago, the world of Web3 and cryptocurrencies was still kind of emerging.

3:29And it's funny looking back on these things, because, of course, you always think you're too late. At the time, it was, you know, a few years after the creation of Ethereum and probably seven or eight years after the creation of Bitcoin. And I thought, oh, this is this is already this has already been done. This this industry has already exploded. And boy, was I wrong. The the level of things that have happened in the last eight years have been incredible. And we're still really at the beginning of all this. And I thought the best area to make an impact, a meaningful impact in the world isn't something that's new, that has a lot of potential, a lot of areas for growth and improvement.

4:11And it's been a heck of a journey getting to discover this untapped world. Now, I can very clearly remember, I'm pretty sure it was back in 2017, maybe it was 2018, like that timeframe, when I had just kind of watched from the sidelines, kind of haphazardly as Bitcoin like shot at the 20 ,000. And then it like pretty much crashed back down. It was like around 10 ,000, 9 ,000. I remember I bought my first Bitcoin at 9 ,000 and then it very quickly proceeded to go down to 3 ,000. And I'm like, wow, this is fun. Like I could have literally had three Bitcoins for what I just paid for one and like what's happening here.

4:52And so like that was my first kind of introduction experience. But of course, you know, I just kind of stayed the course and I've seen it evolve over the years and I've gotten a lot more active myself personally, both in investing and just kind of, you know, trying different things out in the past like three to four years. And it's pretty kind of crazy to me what's happening right now. And my latest kind of absolute passion is micro strategy and what they're doing with just the Bitcoin reserves and becoming a Bitcoin treasury. And my head just kind of popping off when I'm realizing what kind of company and services they're building and we're going to be providing in the future.

5:29And to me, that just shows where this whole industry is going. And with DYOR Labs, I'm really curious for you to kind of take a step back here and explain to us what that stands for first, and then where the early inspiration for DYOR Labs came from. It's a term that probably not a lot of your listeners have necessarily heard before, But it is something that is going to be talked a lot about in the coming weeks and months as this whole industry begins to really explode. And there's a couple of really big things that are happening, and I can kind of go into why that's the case. But DYOR stands for Do Your Own Research.

6:15It is a popular moniker in the space, and it really hearkens on the idea that instead of just taking somebody's advice on what you should invest your hard-earned money into, to, as the term says, to do your own research and to look into these things with a bit of a scrutinizing eye and a shrewd outlook. and as a savvy investor would. There's been so much in the years that have passed of excitement and speculation. People are always FOMO-ing into things. They just want to capture this lightning in a bottle, and that often leads to a lot of mistakes from an investing perspective. So DYOR has become this kind of industry-wide battle cry, if you will, to really make sure that you're doing the proper due diligence on tokens.

7:24We thought this is really the perfect name for a platform that empowers users with data, analytics, and information to be able to make far more informed decisions. Fire Nation, informed decisions is something that a few years ago people kind of thought wasn't really possible in the space. They just thought you kind of had to quote unquote ape into anything if you wanted to get there early enough to actually make things happen. But as the space evolves, as it matures, there's just these great companies like Ben is building that's going to allow people like yourself and myself and any other interested person to truly feel a lot more comfortable about the future of this space and the present moment of what you're doing when it comes to investing, pressing that buy button, transferring, doing any number of things overall.

8:14all. Now, we often hear what I would like to consider fake talk about bridging industries, like everybody's bridging this industry to that industry. And like, there's a lot of talk and there's a lot of hype and there's a lot of smoke. There's not a lot of action, but you, Ben, are doing it. Tell us more. On its face, Hollywood and Web3 might kind of seem like their worlds apart, but they're actually, you know, there are a number of common threads. You You know, there's creativity, innovation, storytelling. These are all integral parts of both industries. And, you know, my experience in Hollywood, obviously, the focus is on engaging audiences.

8:53And in Web3, it's about building trust and educating users. And so I was able to apply a lot of lessons from, you know, both to create this platform that feels intuitive and exciting, but it also addresses some critical pain points for both users and also token issuers. And we can kind of dive into some of the frustrations that they're feeling when it comes to building, managing, and maintaining these innovative projects that they're developing as well. But it is very challenging to change industries and to do these sorts of things. But, you know, life lessons kind of apply across the board. And, you know, I truly believe that innovators and entrepreneurs can really kind of plug into any industry with enough time, knowledge, patience and determination.

9:54Fire Nation, a lot of exciting things are happening in and around this space. And we're going to be diving more into that in general and then specifically what Ben has going on more in specifics when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Picture this. You're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. How do you even begin to describe it? Not only do you brainstorm new campaigns, create compelling copy, dream up landing pages that will actually convert and generate leads. You also have to gather all the data to make sure it's even working. and tomorrow you'll do it all again. Marketers are spread way too thin, but HubSpot has a better way.

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13:03That's netsuite.com slash fire. Netsuite.com slash fire. Ben, we're back. And listen, crypto, as we're talking now, which is Q4 of 2024, is experiencing a massive bull run. I mean, we're seeing new investors flood into the marketplace. Retail is trying to pick back up searches on Google for Bitcoin and other cryptos and just general things in this space is picking up. I mean, you turn on any major news station, they're talking about it. Of course, very famously, President Trump spoke at Bitcoin Nashville at the conference. And he said a lot of great things about a stockpile in Lummis. Senator Lummis is talking about a Bitcoin reserve and all these different things are happening.

13:48You know, a lot of cryptos are booming as well, because people are thinking that they're going to be taking, they're going to be deregulating a lot of the oppressive regulations that they had, or really making clear and fair rules for the first time ever. So there's just a lot going on right now. I want to know specifically what you are doing, what DYOR Labs plans to do to empower these new investors that are coming into the space. It is an enormous opportunity, both for us as a business and also the opportunity for people who have been curious about Web3 and cryptocurrencies to dive in. This is a pivotal, like a really big moment in this industry, where for the first time, obviously don't want to get too political here, but for the first time we have a Congress, a Senate and an executive branch that is strongly in favor of supporting cryptocurrency and supporting innovation, really for the first time since the birth of this industry.

14:54What we're doing specifically is that we've identified that there's two real big challenges in the Web3 space, especially for new people. There's this concept of not really knowing who to trust. And also that, you know, for a lot of these people, it feels like the tools and services that they're interacting with kind of seems like you need a Ph.D. just to start using these things. And so we wanted to build something that was incredibly intuitive, incredibly user friendly. To that end, one of the things that we're in process of building at the moment, we've just released our first version of this.

15:34So this is a brand new grand experiment, if you will, about trying to have this true all-in-one platform that provides all of the information, gives you the ability to trade all of the research capabilities without having to leave or go to a different tab. And so one of the features that we're building in is this idea of having different instances for different levels of traders. A website where you go to do these types of activities shouldn't be the same for different types of people. It should feel very different if you are brand new to crypto versus if you are an experienced trader and you're going to want a different experience and you're going to want different things out of the platform.

16:23So simplicity is key for those just getting into the space. They want to know how to do the research on these things. They want to know what metrics matter. They want to have a better understanding of what the pitfalls are. And so we are curating that kind of an experience for new people that feels to them like an invitation rather than rather than a four year college program that they have to subscribe to. So it's really exciting to be able to be on the forefront of building something that really is meant to onboard and help with mainstream adoption. The years prior to this, the vast majority of projects were built by developers for developers.

17:21And so to have these really brand new user-friendly tools and products is very new to the space. Now, there are other platforms such as Coinbase. For those of you who are not familiar, Coinbase is the largest U.S.-based exchange. It's also a publicly traded company. And for a lot of people, this is going to be a great option. But there are a couple of things that are important to know, especially if you're new to crypto when it comes to platforms like like a Coinbase. The first of which is that every centralized exchange always has one thing in common, which is that you are giving your assets.

18:08You are giving over full control to your assets to a third party. And while Coinbase is a publicly traded company and they're certainly the safest of the bunch, in recent years, we've seen the collapse of major platforms. The most notable, of course, was FTX, which happened in 2021, 2022. And what happened there was that people had entrusted that platform with their assets and the platform being in an unregulated market took those assets and spent them as though they owned the assets and that they were theirs to do with what they pleased. And as a result of that, they ended up losing roughly$30 billion worth of other people's money.

18:59It's a terrible thing for the industry, for investors. So there's always that inherent risk. And the second thing to take note of is the fact that when it comes to cryptocurrencies, one of the most exciting aspects of investing in cryptocurrencies is this potential for massive, massive growth and price discovery. But this really happens if you're willing to take certain risks at earlier stages. This is true of companies of any size or shape in any industry. The earlier you get in, the higher the potential is for growth. By the time a token reaches Coinbase, it's already pretty well established.

19:47They are pretty discerning when it comes to onboarding token projects. And so you lose quite a bit of that upside potential. And that's where platforms like ours, like Dior, come into play and fill that gap because we provide data and analytics on all projects, including ones that are brand new that have launched, you know, minutes or hours ago. Now, the key to this as a new and inexperienced trader is that what's lacking from these types of platforms historically has been any level of consumer protections. They present the information to you, but there is no way of knowing the accuracy of the data you're being provided if something has the potential or certainly is a scam.

20:46And if they're really just kind of targeting people who are trying to get in on something early and so therefore not doing their homework on things. So we've built in a lot of consumer protections into our platform. We have our own native DEX and aggregator. So basically what that means is that that's a decentralized exchange. It allows you to trade your cryptocurrency assets without that custody component that I mentioned before, that you would have to give up effectively the rights to your assets and entrust them in a third party. You don't have to do that using our platform, and therefore, it is a lot more secure.

21:30You retain full control over your assets at all times. We have no ability whatsoever to control or touch those assets. And that's how trust is built, by the way. You know, that's the importance. And that's really the promise of this technology as well, is being able to interact with people without the use of a third party in a trustless, fair way. So these are important concepts in the space, but they're also important for new people to the space to understand. And we are doing our part to try to create an experience that doesn't require a 200-page manual, but at the same time provides a lot of protections and a lot of the ability to still interact with these high potential, high upside assets.

22:29assets. Now, Ben, this is a big question I'm about to ask, and we could have a whole other podcast episode about this, and maybe we will in the future. So for right now, just take a maximum of two minutes and give us a slice of what you believe the future of crypto is. To distill it down, I think that crypto's future lies in accessibility and integration. What we're seeing now is a lot of insular things. There's a lot of infrastructure being built out in the space that supports the space itself. What we haven't really seen is these big ideas that have really transformed our day to day life. Things like banking, things like insurance.

23:16difference um uh there's also uh the idea of uh nfts and uh the potential there now uh what uh if if you've heard of nfts chances are you've heard of these uh things that a bunch of celebrities bought a few years ago for a million bucks and they were pictures of of apes and rocks and things like that that were insanely overvalued. And these, you know, these collectibles really did not share the full picture of the potential of an NFT. And the only difference between a regular token and an NFT is non-fungibility. So the idea behind that is that tokens can be broken down into multiple decibels uh non-fungible tokens are you know one thing that you can kind of transfer back and forth and some amazing use cases for this are you know imagine something that acts both as a combination of a certificate of authenticity providence meaning the whole history of the purchasing of an item and proof of ownership as well, all wrapped into one thing.

24:34So these things are transformative in terms of reshaping how we think about ownership, how we think about proving something is real versus fake, and how we can really track accurately the price and the value of different things that we trade and collect in the world. And Ben, I know you have a lot more to say in that topic, but man, we may have to just schedule a time to come back and discuss this in full because there's so much ahead, Fire Nation. Things are changing every day. Things are being improved. Things are coming to light. It's really interesting space. And for those people that are in it right now, you know what I'm talking about.

25:16Ben, if Fire Nation wants to connect with you, they want to learn more from you, They want to learn more of Dior Labs and everything you're doing there. Give us a call to action. Where can Fire Nation go next? Absolutely. So we've built this incredible community. You know, definitely you guys should check that out. It's on Telegram. So that's, you know, Dior underscore labs at Telegram. We also are on X or Twitter, depending on what you want to call it. And that is Dior Labs underscore. score. So those are the best places to find us. We want to encourage people to interact, ask questions, give us feedback on the platform, what you like, what you don't like.

25:59Our mission is to build something for you that feels personable and customizable. This is how we reshape how things are done in this space and to create an open invitation to those who are curious about it, but feel intimidated by it at the same time to have a place to come and feel welcome and not feel overwhelmed. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with BK and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Ben in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up.

26:44And Ben, I want to say thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. And I look forward to engaging more with your community. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Ben for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. freepodcastcourse.com. I will catch you there or on the flippity flip side.

27:17The Next Wave, your chief AI officer hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lance is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Over 40 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform.

27:51Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash fire.