E100: How Memecoins Will Create the Most Millionaires in World History (with Luca Netz & Meow)

0:28The product is the marketing to the community. The thing about Ethereum is that a lot of Ethereum people don't believe it. Why? It's the same reason why fiat people don't want to believe in crypto. There's a Pengu prophecy where some people claim that the Pengu meme coin can be bigger than any other meme coin. Wow. Okay. Right now, Pudgy Penguins has 20 ,000 unique army members. It's a great number. But imagine Pudgy Penguins with 500 ,000 holders. Let's be clear. In the world of tokens, everyone's a competition. Every time someone comes in here and do something really well, this is a worthy competition.

0:56Should every community have their own stable coin? I don't care whether you have$1 liquidity or$100 liquidity, you have money. A chain is only as good as the apps that are built on top of it and the tokens launched on top of it. There's a certain level in which that ecosystem can't thrive to. I would believe that if this was a token today, it'd be a top three chain token. You guys are... Jupiter EVM? Nah, not EVM. Why not? We'll leave the alpha. He's holding the alpha. I've been messaging him about it. He won't respond.

1:2775 % of you that watch this channel frequently do not subscribe. If you like this show and think it provides value to you in your crypto investing journey, can you please, please, please do me a favor and subscribe to this channel? Hit the like button and leave a comment below. It helps this channel more than you can imagine. The bigger the channel, the bigger the guests and the better the conversation. Thank you. This conversation is supported by Jupiter, the most used decentralized trading platform on Solana and the largest DAO in the world. Sui, a scalable layer one blockchain that's fast, secure, and affordable, built by previous Facebook developers, and that delivers the benefits of Web3 with the ease of Web2.

2:07And Mantle, an Ethereum layer two that builds two products I particularly like. FBTC, which enables you to borrow and lend Bitcoin in DeFi, and METH, or meth, one of the largest ETH liquid-staking protocols that, by the way, just launched its token called COOK. Awesome. This is the start of a new concept of conversation that we're launching with Meow and Jupiter, which is called the Future of Money and Community. Let's go! This is the very first episode. Super excited to do that. And the perfect guy. Absolutely. We have a perfect guy here. We have Lou Canet, the owner of Pudgy Penguin, one of the biggest NFT communities in the world and meow the co-founder of jupiter one of the largest decentralized trading platforms and the largest dow in the world welcome to the show guys so you're the largest dow is that like yeah we have a few okay voters like voting regularly every week as every week or a couple weeks yeah i believe that because how important jupiter is i think to the solana ecosystem like if something goes wrong in that vote.

3:11I feel like, I mean, I didn't, I didn't, I always thought Solana was broken until I used Jupiter. Oh, really? I swear. So my whole thing was I bought a bunch of Solana because the big brain, the big brain guys invested in us and they're like big Solana. So it was actually one day at a hockey game and he was like, look, man, it was like around 11, 12 bucks. He's like, I'm not letting it go below a certain price. I was like, okay, great. I'm buying. So I bought so much Solana. It's my biggest crypto holding. Really? Wow. But I wasn't using, I wasn't using, I always, I always knew it through like the community and culture.

3:44I thought they did that really well, but like the trading always broke for me. I always used radium and there was another swap that I use. It always broke. And it wasn't until I used Jupiter where I was like, oh, this is, this is game over. You were the first product that I really used there because swaps weren't working before. If you use radiums for swaps, it actually doesn't work that well. I don't know how it works anymore. I only use Jupiter, but it wasn't until I used your product. It was like, okay, now I see Solana's use case. So I understand why there's a ton of DAOs, people voting, because it's so important.

4:12It's like the nucleus, the center point, the entire ecosystem, in my opinion, right? I mean, we also do a lot, right, to kind of make a DAO work. Yeah. Right, you know, both in terms of the ASR, at least taking rewards, and also in terms of the weekly cost. Yeah. I think one of the things that actually, I mean, it's funny, right, because people talk about DAO a lot, right? Yeah. But it's kind of bullshit if you think about it. Because why? Because it's almost like, imagine America, right? Yeah. Imagine America went crazy over the voting machines. Yeah. Right. It's not the voting machines that make the DAO.

4:40It's the people. It's the political party. It's the rallies. It's the grassroots. It's all the people that make up the thing. So I feel like the reason why DAOs are so broken in crypto today, I mean, we have some OG DeFi projects, right? They have a DAO vote that no one should know. Literally 20 minutes was taken from a DAO. No one even knew. For our Jupiter DAO, I'm telling you, even if someone say, hey, I want to like take 50k, right? To do a three-man podcast for three months. People go crazy. They ask all kinds of questions. Those guys have they grounded in the community for like three months before they can even get to the vote.

5:19So I think we do a lot. We do a lot, right? On the people level, right? I mean, obviously, we developed a DAO software. It's our own software and everything, right? But we actually also do a lot on the people level as well. And also having a very clear like identity to the community. So we call it J-O-P. they are Jupiter, United, CNN. And we invest. I think the reason why I show up every week is because I think that if I don't show up every week, then everything I say about community being important is bullshit. Right. You know what I'm saying? I totally agree with that. Think, think, think, think.

5:55How many crypto founders say community is important? Yeah. 100%. Right. How many of them spend more time with their business than community? Right. 99%. Correct. Right. So out of the 100%, you can guarantee that only 1 % is serious. You know? Right? Yeah. Talking about building communities, but you're also talking about building businesses because at the end of the day, everything is a business and needs to be sustainable. The problem that I'm seeing and the question that I have, and also you said it before me, most of the founders, they talk about community. They say it's important, but they actually don't have any focus on that.

6:30Yeah. Because it's hard and also because it's a lot of additional work. So how do you, how do you build a community? It's a very basic question, but I think a lot of people are wondering how do you build a community while building a sustainable business when you only have 24 hours in a day and only that much energy, right? I think the community plays such a huge part in the business, right? Like if you realize like the crypto business, I think is too specified around like tokenization and like tokens and things. I think the community is the backbone of this business. And you either are going to have the community on your side and you're going to move 10 times faster, we're going to have the community and not on your side and you're going to blow up in a tragic death.

7:10It's not if it's when. And so I think from my perspective, like community is the business. It's funny you bring this up because we were actually, this is probably like a look under the hood. We spend so much money on the web three side, but we didn't make no money on royalties. And you know, there's a lot of discussion sometimes like finance will come to us and like, look at these line items and be like, dude, like why do you guys spend so much money on this web three thing? When like in reality, it's a giant loss leader. It's the biggest loss leader in the business. And I'm like, well, we're not here without that.

7:35And these other line items, they don't really exist, you know, if we don't have this nucleus. And ultimately, you know, crypto is in the business of like, you take care of your holders, they will reciprocate that value. I'm a firm believer in that. So, you know, though the line item might not make sense today, right? I'm a firm believer that, you know, I'll give you an example. Actually, this is a really inside look. Somebody, we were having this debate just a week ago about this. And we raised a round at hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of valuation. And I told my co-founder and I was like, look, you know, our EBITDA on a brand and on our business, you know, Puchy Penguins is probably worth 80 to a hundred million dollars on the IP side.

8:12Why did these, why did these found, why did these investors, you know, price us at a way bigger multiple than what our EBITDA reflects? And it's because of our revenue potential that comes from taking care of our community, right? So we might not have, like, everyone knows that, you know, you don't, you don't know our revenue numbers, but, you know, you can basically do the map on like an IP EBITDA and basically what I just said and kind of figure out how much we're making. But, you know, we're worth so much more than that because everybody knows that, you know, if I wanted to pull some sort of lever, I could make a ton of money, but I don't want to do that until I make, you know, our community tons of money.

8:45And as I make them tons of money, then that will reciprocate. And I think there's ways to kind of give and take. So that's like the interesting part. I would actually say the community is the business, right? Like if everyone hated him and he had no community, somebody would come out. And, you know, the problem is, is everyone thinks that the product is the moat. Now you have an amazing product, right? But somebody could go with the existing product that he has and works backwards, get a bunch of engineers, raise a bunch of money and maybe create a similar product. So many have tried. Right. But the reason why that never gains any traction is because they like, he's developed a community and a brand and then those people are never going to pivot over.

9:18So to add on, to add on, so he had, so it's funny because he's saying that because I was thinking of the exact same words, right? Community is the business. Yes. The business is the community, right? And here's the thing. And I want to do that. Let me add one more line here, right? Most people, especially those who do ad drops, right? They think that they build a product, right? And they try to do marketing, right? So they try to, how to put it? They try to, they take an ad drop, right? As a way to do marketing, right? For the product, right? I'm saying, you know, right? We actually take a competitive way.

9:57We think that the product, right, is marketing to get a community. Let me say it again. We built a really good product, right? We spent enormous amount of time, right? Crazy amount of time. People don't know how hard it is to index, sort, filter, route, design, and scale. I mean, think about it. We service every single wallet, every single DeFi application, every single website. Right, I'm saying? And it's$20. It's crazy, right? But we do all that, right? And we don't actually make money on that. Why? Because we actually think, right, that the product is the marketing for the community, right?

10:33The product is where our ethos comes through, right? They use it and go, wow, this Jupyter takes their shit seriously. And to be clear, it's not just when things are going well, right? But even when things don't work, right? How do you respond? Do you respond with, do it by saying, ah, no, it's fine. You guys are fucking stupid. Or we just go, okay, we are sorry. It's not our expectation. You're going to fix it, right? So I feel like, I feel like, I feel like what we, what our key ethos here, is like, the product is marketing, you know, for our community. Right? So we really go with that in mind.

11:08You know, sometimes we make money, sometimes we generate revenue, like our perks we do, right? But even, but I think sometimes we don't. But regardless of what we do and stuff, that center of it, that we always remember is this. Our product reflects our ethos. You know? And how it does how it goes. I love that he brought this up because, I always look at him as like, if I was in Solana Ecosystem, I think I would be this guy. Right. So let's apply what he just said. And let's apply it to Pudgy Penguins and see how I think it's just like, it can be similar. He says the product is the marketing to the community.

11:42Think about my toys, for example. My toys are the product. People, everything. I think I'm in the toy business. I'm like, dude, you don't understand what I'm doing. The toy business is really the marketing to my community. 100%. Right. I don't like that. I didn't come into Web3 and crypto to sell toys. I was doing that at$100 million a year with Gel Blaster. That's not why I came in, but it's the product, which is the toy, is the marketing for the community. I double down. 100%. I see that so often and stuff. One thing that I, the reason why I always have a big fan of Pajoo, right? It's because when you're bringing NFT or MemeCoin, I mean, it's like, that's a product, by the way.

12:18You know, the product is the content. Totally. And the vibe. Right, you know? Those things are marketing for a community. Not the other way around, right? You know, it's too many people try to design or do a token and stuff to draw people in. It's their way around, right? You want to create the best possible product to reflect the community, right? Like, Taylor Swift is a great example, right? You know, it's a brand that people want to be part of, right? Because you're Swifty, right? You know, it's a great thing, you know? I feel like, so I feel it's actually very important to the mindset where the product is the marketing, you know?

12:49I think that is probably the, if you ask me and stuff, that's probably the crucial mindset. And most people don't think that way. Because most people think of like, oh, the product, the product is the end of, either the product or the price or the revenue. We think the company is the end game. Because naturally, and I'll tell you why, I think people get confused here, especially in cryptos, because naturally, community is a loss leader. So like the traditional entrepreneur mind, it's just like, well, you know, efficiency, P &Ls, and you get like confused in this rabbit hole. And there's like CT also, like CT, which is the main channel, they focus exclusively on price, right?

13:21You know what I'm saying? You know, right. And unfortunately, price is a it's a very lagging indicator sometimes right and we see that very often right you know so I think like I mean Degos is a great example right you know like let's talk about that let's talk about that yeah amazing community like I feel like it's one of those like things where you just look past the price right or like it just was the price and then you interact with the community and stuff it's a great example I mean there's this thing where holy fuck those shit are insane bruh The whole bro culture The way they talk You have a whole You have a whole For example You have a whole group of guys They're just dancing Like crazy and stuff And CT will mock them And be like Oh there's no girls there Don't get it It's a bro game bro It's such a strong bro Community Insane Right Maybe to put some context Right You talked about NFT meme coins You said Kind of famously Every coin is a meme coin I believe that too If you know If you know the game You believe that The thing about Ethereum Is that a lot of Ethereum doesn't want to believe that.

14:24They know it. They know it though. They know it. But don't believe that. Why? Sorry? Why? They don't want to believe that. Because there's this very, very, it's the same reason why fiat people don't want to believe in crypto. Yeah. It's the same reason. There's a very strong, I love Ethereum by the way. I worked in Ethereum ecosystem for a long time before hopping. I'm still in actually. I still advise a lot of like, you know, top Ethereum projects actually. Like InstaDap and whatever not, feel it. You know, and yeah, but I think there exists this mindset that's anchored around a certain idea of value and tokenomics and economics that is very hard and also it's also communicated.

15:06And when you, when a group of people communicate a certain thing as fact, you know, for a very long time, then they start to anchor themselves in that belief, you know. So I think that's actually the issue. If you ask me. We've, there's a, there's a Pengu prophecy. It's like big lore. I'm not going to get into it, but there's a Pengu prophecy where some people claim that the Pengu and the Pengu meme coin can be bigger than any other meme coin. Like there's deep lore many years prior to me taking over that this could be a case. I was going to bring it up, but I think I was going to bring it up in during different marketing market conditions.

15:43Cause I also told my community, I would never go down this route. So I'm also like a man of my word. And like, I told them I would never go in this direction. Now, naturally, I felt like with with abstract that we had to go and do something that was more crypto native. And I kind of saw the writing on the wall, which is like, if I continue to do things that are IP driven, the space loves that. But if Pudgy Penguin starts and stops with how we build our IP in the world, I think that's not sexy enough for us to go where I want to go. Right. So I had to add a new layer to the ecosystem that I thought made the ecosystem a lot more sexy and a lot more crypto friendly that ultimately, I think, could like create an interesting flywheel that that, you know, we can kind of get into in a sec.

16:19but I but I think from my perspective I've actually just so you know I've talked to Frank about this for like six seven months I mean we've we've had conversation I kind of knew who's going in this direction he kept kind of kept this hidden for me which is cool I totally understand but like him and I have had I've I mean I've been debating for a long time because because my biggest frustration as a founder specifically in the NFT space is I hate doing something and it not moving the needle right so if I go do something really big like for example Walmart huge announcement pallet in the middle of the store for god's sakes 2000 like think about how incredible that really was i mean people give us our flowers for it i was down five percent on the day on my nft i think about that i was down five percent if i was a token i would have been up you know i mean everyone would be full levering that and and people would get rewarded right because like i don't want to do things and my community not get rewarded for it and i think that's kind of like a an issue and and i know i can solve that if we had a liquid token i'm sorry sorry but like so this almost feels like a kind of political problem.

17:18It's a political problem. Oh, for sure. Which basically means do I do the best thing for my project long-term given my vision or do I play the game that might lead me to somewhere where I don't want to get to? No, I don't think I don't think it's a compromise. I don't think it's mutually exclusive. No, it's not. You think of it as a no, no, it's not. It's like your only goal as a project is to fight real. Right? Your only goal. Your only goal for a project is to understand that community revenue and everything's a flywheel, right? Think about it. Everything, you know? Right, yeah. So I don't think it's compromise.

17:49When if I were to add a Pengu token, there's an argument to be made that there's more liquidity. Now, the rarity problem is it's own thing because there's real collectors in Pudgy Penguin. So I haven't gone down far this rabbit hole, but I would have to address that in some capacity. But like what holders, my job and a big thing we've done at Pudgy is like liquidity. Every AMM pool, every piece of infrastructure, meta street, like I'm making sure we have everything plugged in because ultimately it's a liquidity game. Like you have to be able to unlock those levers of liquidity because that's ultimately what drives price.

18:17And especially with such an illiquid asset like NFT is like every little partnership moves the needle. And so I don't really, I actually think, and then we also talk about army size. Like my army can only get so big. Imagine pudgy penguins with 500 ,000 holders, right? Because I'm really in the marketing business above all else, right? I'm in the proliferation and the champion business and developing an army to go march in my direction. So right now, Pudgy Penguins has 20 ,000 unique army members ready for war, ready for battle. It's a great number, right? But it's never going to get bigger than that.

18:49Maybe it goes up or down 1 ,000 or 2 ,000 people. Doing a Pengu token, for example, that is, you know, you'd figure it out. I was super against this for a very long time. But as I think about it more and more, I become increasingly bullish. But I would never do it. It would start and stop at the community. So again, like why I'm excited about Frank is this our first use case of it. I just interested in that because actually I feel like often the community needs to see it too right totally they need to see it too I have this I have this thing about like if if 75 I can overcome 25 % opposition right but anything more than 25 % I can do it but I guess it's expensive yeah right and it's like I might sprint the community it fails I'm thinking about builders were Web3 builders you're building a business you're building a community so it's a lot right and you have your plans next product next feature whatever and then there is something completely new from a competitor and right in that case you say i'm rooting because that might actually make our case better but in many cases it's you're competitive right you might be just like fuck like another thing i need to think about maybe i need to change all my plans like how do you deal with that i mean both of you because i know also you meow like you you you know like there is a lot of stress right you told me sometimes man I'm so stressed out I'm so stressed out I'm so stressed out and then you have like this this fucking new competitor like doing this new thing you're like oh man another thing I didn't need to think about I go first do you want yeah I go first I mean no I think from my perspective like Frank is the only person I look at that I don't look at as competition I look at it that's like that's that's the only found that's him and julian would be like the only two where i'm like julian from doodles okay those are the only two and i like the all the other guys don't get me wrong but like there's just something specifically with frank like frank played a huge role in our success because when no one gave a about me he kind of put me on the map to like a new audience so i want to see him win in a way that i think is like very unique and and i also like they didn't take a ton of money like i think they did everything the right way um but i think in general in general we need to push the envelope open in a space like nfts it's like this space is a little bit different like everyone's swapping right everyone's going so he's just like yo we gotta in our space it's like man somebody somebody somebody give us something to reach at so that we can bring it back because like we're in like kind of in a dismal spot i think we're the worst of it is through but i think we're a little bit in a space where it's like the the tide needs to be lifted he's in a ultra competitive like yeah you do something i would love to hear your opinion actually like how do you feel about competition and people doing new features probably go nuts.

21:29It's so, it's so, my, wow. Dude, you are about to enter very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that. I actually want to talk to you about that real quick, actually. Yeah, I would love to talk about it. I want to talk about this, actually, you know, we talked a lot about what you're doing right now. We haven't talked about what you're doing next, which is what I'm really interested in. Right, you know, but, My view is simple I think over the years And stuff I've developed A A A very Very Very Schizophreniac Way to handle Competition Right Schizophreniac The The Schizophrenia Comes in Two ways The first one Is that I go crazy I go crazy I know I go I'm gonna die I'm gonna fail Everything's gonna go to shit Nothing's gonna work And then I go to This like crazy Schizophrenia It's crazy schizophrenia phase for like a couple weeks and stuff, right?

22:27And then like it's a powerful thing to have. Schizophrenia and paranoia is really powerful, right? Because just go fuck and just buck out everything, right? Just like really you ready to truth you do a course you do an analysis you think about it you cover a weak spot you know, you go into retreat mode you know what I'm saying? You can go to two modes you can go to Icarus mode Icarus are good because you go to Loser Sun, right? There are two modes that are powerful in crypto. Red tree mode Redwood tree mode And Icarus mode Right Crypto moves too fast For you to always be a Redwood You know You gotta go crazy sometimes Right But go crazy You can't go to the sun too much Right So you gotta get the balance Between being a Redwood And Icarus You know Right So that's that So I think It's really helpful Because I go into Redwood tree mode Let me just go into survival And just make sure That I cover all my business Fucking everything Right But then after you realize Oh you know Actually it's not so bad Because number one Combination is good for you Because it helps you Make it better Right Secondly is that if something comes to a space and they're genuinely doing something interesting, right?

23:24You learn from them. You learn from them, right? So I think, and later on, you realize that, okay, if someone does come in and then the final stage is acceptance, right? You go like, hey, all right. So you go from paranoia to, to, to, to, sorry, you go from acceptance to, you go from paranoia to acceptance to happiness, right? You go, oh, cool. All right, I learned something new. This is good for the space, right? You know, then you just, and then, you know what? It always works out, right? you just learn from them and it co-exist. Either they are really shit and they die or they are really good and you learn something and it co-exist.

23:58And then the loop happens again. And that happens every month. So you go into this crazy life. So you go into a few weeks of paranoia every month. Yeah. So you go into three days of one week. No, no. Literally. Like paranoia, acceptance, happiness. Like blissfulness, I guess. Okay, accept. And then you go into like they're just nothing for one money it won't go with you it's crazy yeah that's nice you said the ip was always the trojan trojan horse crypto needed why has ip always been the trojan horse because because crypto needs crypto crypto needs an angle to it and it needs a significant piece of this pie where people are not coming to to make or to speculate on things like right now we've got the speculation thing completely figured out totally like that's that's such a huge use recently just crazy yeah last few months you know we got people like him building the coolest best ways to kind of trade and go inside different ecosystems but there's another section of crypto where it's about digital ownership and participation and brand and i think like that part has just been completely deficient and i think when you think about bringing people into crypto that's not predicated on price going up or price going down, I think IP is the best way to do it.

25:17I mean, think about what digital collectibles did for Ethereum and NFTs did for Ethereum at that moment in time. You know, obviously that was like predicated on price going up and price going down. But I think there's a huge opportunity and a bunch of unlock that I think happens when you look at like what the future of brand looks like and what because tokenization is really alignment, right? It's participation and adds some sort of aligned incentive that I think gets people to participate and i think when you think about what does it mean to adopt ip uh and what does it mean to grow ip one it's super scalable it's you know there's a there's a real playbook to doing it and two i think it gets people into crypto in a way that is not based on like oh hey let's go buy this let's go sell this but like let me go participate right that's it's good to say that because um you know how we at a very early part of conversation we talk about the automobility right yep we do two things as well right i think i think it's very interesting because on one hand you have this like value-driven view to crypto, right?

26:12On the other hand, you also have this very pragmatic view of crypto as like, you're going to make good money, right? So I think for us, it's very similar too, right? I think we have this thing where we have to build the best product, you know, that will be able to trade and do well and also the programs do well and stuff, right? Things like that, right? So we do a lot in terms of the token and stuff, giving them assurance and alignment and everything, right? But on the other hand, I think there's also this values part of it, right? We really want to build a community that is like hyper-sending to each other, that's really driven towards making decentralized the world more decentralized trading place, right?

26:43Towards like, I feel like maybe I'm being naive, right? But I think if you have both sides of a story, right? If you can appeal to both the very pragmatic aspect and also the really idealistic aspect, right? You kind of bring them together, right? That could actually be how it works. You know? That's how we go about things. Agreed. Let's talk about our tools. Yep. I mean, obviously, there's a ton of discussion recently, right? About the relationship between Ethereum and all the L2s, right? You know, and by the way, this is also highly related to the point earlier, later about money. Because, trust me, it's going to be very related.

27:19Because this whole topic of Ethereum as money, right? And the value of L2s to L1s and how that matters and stuff, I think it's an extremely relevant topic. But let's go on for a while. So in your discussion, right? So how do you see the relationship? And you had a very interesting tweet or message. I think you were saying that I built up this community. I without this I pee I without a lot of shit Why should I let The value Accrue to someone else I should actually Let it accrue to myself Not to my community Per se How do you So how do you And I love that Because You know I love that Because that is what Every other L2 Is doing and thinking But they're not saying that They're just They say a lot of stuff In tribute to the church You know Right, but I don't actually say it.

28:09I mean, I found it to be awesome because you were really the one that just said it front and out right. So what do you think of the recent Ethereum debate? And where do you think a strap fits into Ethereum ecosystem and just general thoughts there? So I think right now in EVM, Yeah, I think right now in EVM, there's a giant hole in consumer. And so what I learned actually shopping around Pudgy Penguins, so if you're not familiar, Pudgy Penguins is two products built on L2s. One of them is the Pudgy World product, which is in Walmart, in Target, You had this idea that I buy a toy, scan a QR code, redeem NFTs, and now I'm in this like Web3 game.