E130: Pudgy Penguins CEO : The Biggest Ethereum Shift is Coming & the huge PENGU comeback!

26:22I completely agree with the collectible thesis. Raoul Pal is also kind of at the forefront of that with the two or three other guys who are deep into NFTs and explaining all that stuff. The only thing I'm thinking is, I mean, it probably takes more time than we think for this NFT kind of thesis to play out, maybe a couple of years. then you need to be in the nfts that are in these hundred thousand most rare collectibles right so you need to you need to be i mean there's a bunch of like very rare nfts then there's the crypto punks and then there is the apes and the the pudgy penguins but you need to stay there because things can change, right?

27:03How do you stay there? I think we've got it so figured out. I just, our brand is most well positioned for a collectible to appreciate because we're the furthest thing to, we're the closest thing to a real brand in crypto. Everyone will tell you that, right? Like, who's the closest thing to a real genuine brand in crypto? It's Pudgy Penguins. Like, anyone who refutes that is nuts. If anyone refutes that, just kick them out of the room. They just don't know what they're talking about, right? And so collectibles appreciate, right? The biggest collectibles are the ones based off of brands, right? So it just turns out my first editions are my digital collectibles, which are my NFTs.

27:46And we are the closest thing to becoming crypto Star Wars, to becoming crypto's Hello Kitty, to becoming crypto's Pokemon. We're the closest thing to that. Do we have a long ways to go? Heck yeah. Yeah. And we have a lot to prove and we have a lot of work to do, but we're the closest thing to that. Right. And so collectibles in the real world, the ones with the highest market caps are those brands. Right. And so I think value is most positioned to accrue to our digital collectible from a PFP perspective than I think the latter, with maybe the exception of punks. from a, it depends how you look at it too.

28:24Cause it's like, do you factor in airdrops and wealth creation from the team? Or do you factor in like, it's two different sides of the spectrum, but punks are definitely up there because the lore, it's like, the punks community did great at this whole like first narrative. And they've kind of captured like that little Bitcoin moment. Exactly, it's the Bitcoin of NFTs, right? So it's hard. It's expected to do nothing. and kind of very low risk, no execution risk. Yeah. And they got the new Node foundation all over it. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of punks. Obviously, Pudgies, Xcopy, Sam Pratt. Yeah, there's obviously, you know, you can't, the board ape, you know, the board ape's still iconic.

29:12You can say what you want. You know, I have problems with some of their community members, but the board ape is the board ape, you know, what are you going to, can't knock the board ape to a certain extent so um what you said before with the where hello kitty or star wars were the closest one right actually the reason why i bought a bunch of pudgy penguins two years ago when we talked the first time on this podcast and also i bought some pretty after every freaking podcast we did together i was like fuck i need more pudgy penguins was exactly that. I was thinking, we are at the beginning of a new bull market.

29:49NFTs got wrecked. And if I just look out there, what's out there? You say we're the closest thing, but I would go one step further and say, not only is the closest thing, but what else is out there? Trying to do something tangible, right? And two years ago, there was literally nothing. Yeah. So that's why for me, the NFT play on Pudgy Pengu was like a no-brainer. So as I said, I own a bunch of Pudgy Penguins. I bought more Pudgy after every podcast we've done together. Should I hold on to my Pudgy Penguins NFTs for dear life and why? I think so because I think I think if you hold ETH like any ETH south of 100 ETH I think you got to hold it in Penguins.

30:38I think you're fiscally irresponsible if you don't because the data tells me that it outperformed stake ETH every year since I've been at the helm. And that's a very easy benchmark to beat. I say 100 ETH because NFTs are illiquid, going in and going out relatively. So if you have more than 15 penguins, it's harder to get in and out of them. It's not like just clicking a button on a trade, right? You got to play a little bit of a game. But I think if you're bullish Ethereum and you're playing with south of 100 ETH and you're just trying to net long ETH, Pudgy Penguins will outperform it every day of the week.

31:18I mean, don't even take my word for it. The data is insane behind that statement. If you actually look at the returns, it's like 100 % year over year, right? If you factor in the airdrops, if you don't factor in the airdrops, it's still like 38 % or something like that. It's something blended over the median three years. I asked this question to Raul actually in Dubai, maybe two months ago. He's very bullish. NFTs, what if ETH is cooked forever? Because it's so tight. All these NFTs, like these OG NFTs, they're all tied to ETH. And ETH has been having a crisis moment. And every time we think, oh, now we're so back, we're not so back.

31:56That's a bet you're going to have to make. Now, I'll give you the, because I'm a believer of Solana. I'm a big believer of Solana. I'm also a big believer of Ethereum for different reasons. But I will tell you the reasons why I'm bullish Solana, I'll give you some good alpha for the ETH community. Because you're right. Like, I don't believe, like, I very much believe they're ETH denominated. And so part of it has to be a bet on ETH, right? They're just part of the game. But the ETH Foundation reached out to somebody that I knew, a builder. this is crazy because ETH Foundation doesn't reach out to builders and he asked him he said how can we support you better this is big this is big news from behind the scenes because ETH Foundation reaching out to people and net new builders and saying how can we support you better is a complete 360 shift of the tide and then obviously the stablecoin stuff now I don't think I think the whole like, oh, they're powering stable coins.

33:01I think that's a less defensible moat than I think people think. But today, most stable coins are being issued on ETH for reasons that like, look, it's the best net neutral, you know, blockchain out there and with the highest security. And, you know, it stood the test of time the longest. But I do think that moat could be taken. But I think the most bullish thing to come out of Ethereum is the fact that they're actually talking to builders. I mean, think about this. Pudgy Penguins for a while was like one of the shining lights of Ethereum. I still think it is today. Like name, like especially in the category in the little ocean that we're playing in compared to most crypto builders.

33:40Like we are we own our ocean, our part of the ocean. not a single person from any ETH anything acknowledged me outside of like one Medici conference where I said hi to Joe Lubin and he like shook my hand but probably doesn't even know who the heck I am right um there was like a very pompous like ivory tower culture there that was real I'm telling you as a builder it was it was super real um but and and and that I think is was one of its Achilles heels. But to your point, is it a bet on ETH? I very much think it is. From the short to medium term, if you have a crazy long time horizon, which nobody in crypto really does with the exception of a few, if you have a 10 to 20 year time horizon, I'd say maybe less predicated because maybe ETH goes to zero and it's just a stable coin chain, right?

34:31And it just lives like that and people just transact on the chain in dollars. But my bet, I think in the short to medium term, meaning from now until the next five, 10 years, you're betting all NFTs to some extent. You're betting the native currency and you're betting that outperformance of the NFT. I just have to say something about the ETH people. This podcast is the same. I had Tully from Solana. I had Chris Larson from Ripple. I had Lily, I had Polkadot, I had Gavin. Almost everyone. The ETH people are unreachable or they don't give a fuck. or they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, and they never come back.

35:10And I mean, I might have Joe Lubin, but it was, it's a nightmare to get these people on. And at some point you're like, hey, look, these are all the other people. Everyone came on this freaking podcast. Like guys, like, come on. So I mean, I'm not like a builder builder, but like it's the same. And I'm like, at some point you just, you almost want to say, listen guys, you don't want to do anything, fuck it. Like I'm just going to go to the other people, right? Right. And so, yeah, if it's like that for me, which is like a very simple business, like for more complicated blockchain-based businesses, I can't even imagine.

35:45You've got a pretty great podcast, dude. I've watched you over the years. You've got the most insane Rolodex of guests ever. We have better to come, even better. Who has a better Rolodex of guests than crypto? I mean, you must know. Who's your biggest competitor? I would love to know. Who do you wake up and be like, damn. who are you competing with you must be competing with someone I mean honestly because I do this in studio podcast every week right it's in studio there was no one and there was just Thread Guy but for like 10 episodes right and he was doing not every week so I was like okay and I know Livestream I consider this completely different I think Livestream has massive opportunity and that actually much bigger than what I'm doing here but I'm not the I'm not DJing and young enough to be like this live stream guy.

36:34Like he would be perfect for that. But the number one thing that you need to understand about business is fucking consistency. So if you do a podcast or live stream, whatever, it should be every week. If I do a podcast in studio, it should be every freaking week with the best guests. And what I realized is, obviously you're competing with our attention, et cetera, but no one, it's too hard. Like who wants to spend their life in fucking planes? Like I don't want to do that, but I do it because someone has to do it, right? And so there was Mika doing three podcasts. There was Threadguy doing 13 podcasts and after Andrew Tate stopped.

37:04And I felt it because I was like, these guys are going to blow up because, I mean, blow up, like crash out. Because taking all these planes is so unsustainable. If you're not mega organized in advance, line up guests, understand that you should do one per week because that's how you turn that into a business with sponsors and all that stuff. Like it's an entire content machine. Like you can't just do one and then disappear for a month. And then that's not a business, right? That's like whatever content creation. so for me like in this very specific format that I think is everything because the best sound quality and the best visual quality totally like that's how people stop right oh fuck the best trailers and all this shit right and so I actually wanted to take that even further with Gavin Wood we did this production that is not even in that kind of studios like we set up the studios for that a bit like Chris Williamson right you set up the studios and so I'm recording with Sergei Nazarov from Chainlink and Avax founder Avalanche founder on Thursday and same I'm like how do we do the best freaking production that people are like this is almost like a fucking movie right and so I would say in that category there's not really anyone and also like how do you do something that's understandable by the people on YouTube YouTube has 2 billion people so if you understand click through rates and average watch time which is everything for the video recommended basically thumbnail and title and then conversation that needs to be accessible enough you need to have this very simplistic conversation otherwise if it's too nerdy like for example Bankless they do an amazing job it's an amazing business but it's too nerdy and it's online and I don't and there's no we're not going to inspire anyone from outside of crypto to come into crypto with these online Zoom meetings like we won't or you do live stream but I would argue live stream in studio like like Aiden Ross with freaking Donald Trump but it's too hard yeah it's fucking hard but like you fucking do it that's why you're gonna be successful like so yeah I mean it's so hard but like everything is hard and I think this business is probably the least hard in this industry to be honest so you do 52 weeks every week every week and now we have this drop series that John was on before it's kind of for upcoming founders so now we do two per week in studio so I have these drops and I have this but you'll go you'll do in like a month you'll try to do like 40 not that many because at some point, the problem is in crypto, it gets stale, yeah.

39:31How many big people in crypto? A hundred? Yeah. And it's a business, you have to go higher and higher. After I had Tully and Chris Larson and Sergey - Where you go from that. And exactly, right? You're like, fuck, how do I go higher? I can't go too much lower. So I have only that - Satoshi Nakamoto. Exactly, or Vitalik, but Ethereum people don't give a fuck, right? So how do you go higher? You need to go to these people that are, I'm competing with, I was a month here in March in the US to do a 13 podcast with Pomp, with Tully, with Chris Larson, with everyone, Scaramucci, et cetera. I'm literally competing with Donald Trump for these people's attention because it takes me months to organize this.

40:12Then once they say yes, it's not the hardest. The hardest is they say yes, but then, oh, let's do it in six months. But I'm like, guys, I'm only here for one month. And we need to be in a studio at the same time. And then three days later, Trump says, oh, crypto summit at the White House. All the fucking podcasts canceled or postponed because, I mean, it's Donald Trump. Like I'm fucking nobody, right? So I'm like, man, like fuck that. Like it's so hard. But it's because it's so hard that it's also valuable at some point. Yeah, that's a really good one. Anyways, talking about the masses, you announced abstract on this podcast about a year ago.

40:48Yeah. What is abstract if you had to explain it to your mom? I think Abstract today is the consumer portal for the best and easiest consumer experience today. Abstract is very much portal. So for those who are not familiar, Abstract is the chain. It's kind of like our Anthropic. It's our LLM. Portal is the consumer-facing product. It's basically this interface, this one-stop destination where you can do everything on chain. we're going to take some really big swings at bat on portal here over the coming months we've been working on a lot of big things internally um the first couple of months of abstracts launch were rough because we basically launched at like when the bull market was turning around um and we and we launched poorly we weren't ready to launch we just launched just because we set a date and we wanted to honor it rather than i think trying to optimize for the best launch and it's very much an ecosystem.

41:54And I was talking to the guys about this because we're raising a round for Abstract right now. Going to get the community involved in some way. But like, I think our goal and our mission at Abstract is to bring fun back to the EVM, right? Like EVM is super boring. There's nothing to do. There's tens, if not a hundred plus billion dollars and dormant ETH looking to participate and do something fun. And NFTs were that in 2020, 2021. I think we really successfully built, I think, an amazing consumer terminal. I know it's super successful because our retention is through the roof. Every other blockchain is copying and creating a similar style product.

42:38And now I think we're at an inflection point where I think Portal needs its core killer feature that's predicated around fun. And so I think we need to be building the fun. I think our approach over the last six months has been like other people will come build fun. But I think we have a unique opportunity to not only galvanize people to come build the fun on our chain, but also for us to kind of build the fun into the platform. And what is it today? I think it is the best consumer portal and consumer experience in crypto. It's the best zero to one. And if I were to tell my grandma, I would say, you know, go to this website if you want to learn about crypto, go through the steps, sign up, log in and experience what it feels like to be on chain.

43:24But where I think it is and where it needs to be, we're really going to try to take some big swings at bat in terms of making portal really a holistic product. Right now, I think it's just a really great place to kind of understand the ecosystem and participate. but I don't think it's creating those vectors that is creating virality and hype, et cetera. And those are going to be kind of the strides that we take over the next couple of months. So I'm excited for that. Yeah. But building a blockchain, I think was a little bit harder than I thought because, you know, on one side there's, there's like the obvious, like, oh, whatever.

44:04But then it's like, oh, this person deploys on the chain. And like, I don't know what his intentions are. And then he's like a rug puller. that part of it super interesting you know because like you know somebody reached out to me there was a there was a protocol on abstract that had so much hype and momentum I won't mention it and I loved it I had so much fun I genuinely loved it and unfortunately like the you know it stopped doing so well like it's down 95 % from the top and guys are messaging me being like why did you endorse this be careful what you endorsed and I'm like dude I'm just here to support builders on my chain, brother.

44:41You know, like I'm just here to like, I'm not endorsing these guys. I'm trying to support them because if I don't support them, no one's building on my chain, right? Like part of the edge while you're a small blockchain is like you got to, you can support people and cater to people better than the next. And then I'm supporting, you know, I support a couple of guys and then, oh my God, the prices have gone down 95%. That's the last thing I want to do. I want to create wealth and opportunity for my communities, right? And then people are blaming me. And then you do that like three times in a row just by quinkadink, right?

45:13And then it becomes a bigger cascade. And then you can't support guys who are actually building. And then maybe the solution is to just support your top five guys, but then you just become a chain of five apps that you're just pushing. And then that's not fresh or new or exciting. That's the part that I actually didn't really factor in, that it's really threading a needle, which is partly why like I want to be responsible for what we control a little bit more in terms of like some of the things that are on the chain in the portal that are bringing that fun and that attention and then leave the discovery for a lot of other people to kind of figure out but it's you know I'm a super confident person and every time I do something I know that I'm gonna do it at the highest level and I'm gonna tell people I'm gonna do it at the highest level and I'm going to tell people that I'm going to compete and win, one, to hold myself accountable, but for other people to hold myself accountable as well.

46:08I think the vision and the confidence around abstract, I've actually never been more confident and never been more bullish on it. But I did underestimate, I think, the behemoth that building a blockchain is because it's just like even I gave you the forward facing stuff on the back end. And it's like liquidity and what pairs have what and incentivizing that. And like, but you don't want to over incentivize that because then you become a farming chain. And yeah, it's really easy for me to boost TVL through the roof, but that's dormant negative capital. That's just going to extract and create chaos.

46:43You know, there's a lot of interesting things, but I will say this. This guy, Saigar, is a generational talent. You know, it was the one missing piece in the igloo. We always needed a technical Chad. Like, I think I'm one of the best in the world at marketing. Peter thinks he's one of the best in the world at creative. But Don thinks he's one of the best in the world in strategy. Sygar thinks he's one of the, he can go toe to toe with any developer in the space. And he manages an amazing unit. That whole engineering team is phenomenal. So the beauty, I think, of where we are today is I know exactly where we're going and how we're going to compete.

47:16I think we have a really great base. And, you know, figuring we've only been around three or four months, I'm super proud of our accomplishments. Now, I think we're going to have to start taking some more risks. at least on the portal and the platform feature risks. But, you know, ultimately, I think all feature testing is good. And then, you know, our plan is to raise to really kind of take this whole thing to the next level. Because, you know, I think we have enough, you know, in the pipeline being built and enough, I think, currently on the platform that I think it's time to go and activate the marketing machine and do all of these things that I think we're really good at to bring in those net new users.

47:53And so that's kind of, I think, the focus for the next two, three months. You mentioned Igloo. There's Igloo, there's Pudgy Penguins, there's Abstract. There's one more nobody knows about. I can't, I'm not going to say it on here, but there's one more. There's one more. I think quite a few people are confused, actually, because there's multiple different things. What's the link between Abstract and Pudgy Penguins? if there is any? You know, I think a lot of people overthink it, right? I think when you look at our ecosystem, we are a team of super chads. We are amazing at what we do and we are here to bring crypto to the masses.

48:40And every part of the igloo feeds into that mission and that vision and they do cross-pollinate. We have Pudgy Penguin Games that we'll be launching on Abstract. We have Pudgy Penguin products that will be launching on Abstract. We have, you know, Pudgy Penguins, which is his own standalone entity. You have Pengu, which is the Solana token. But I think too many people in crypto let some bad take on Twitter from some peanut gallery member box them in into like the vision of what they want to be. I'm a distribution maxi. I want to be the face of penguins around the world. I am the mascot of crypto.

49:16I am going to be everywhere, right? I'm going to be on Abstract. I'm going to be on Solana. I'm going to be on Ethereum. I'll be on Bitcoin if I want to. I'll go be on Polkadot if that's what it needs to be. It doesn't matter to us. I think a lot of people are trying to like want there to be this elaborate puzzle piece when it's like, no, we are building amazing products with an amazing community. Everyone who gets into our ecosystem leaves it making money unless they just, you know, quit early on. Right. But anybody who truly believes in this ecosystem finds success. And all of the products tie into each other, but they aren't built off of one another.

50:04How does Abstract and Pengu tie into each other? Well, if you're a Pengu community member, you're just going to count on me to take care of you guys if I have the opportunity to do it. If you're a Pudgy Penguin NFT holder, you already know what the game is. You guys are my first believers. You guys are my first edition collectors. It's a smaller group, so it's easier to reward them. You know, obviously, there's a million Pengu holders, so it's kind of hard to segment. And an abstract, I think, is tackling a problem that is, I think, even bigger than the pudgy penguin in terms of this idea that, you know, there needs to be a consumer interface that everybody uses to participate on chain.

50:43And but again, you know, pudgy community grows. They use abstract pudgy products built on abstract, you know, pudgy products also built on Telegram. Pudgy products also built on Ethereum. Pudgy products also built on Solana. We're not agnostic in that sense, but our products have to win, not because we've created some elaborate Ponzi scheme that makes them win. Our products are going to win and our tokens are going to win and our non-fungible tokens are going to win by the integrity of the brand and the products that those individual assets represent, right? Right. Pudgy Penguin Pengu is going to win, not because, you know, it might get some big abstract airdrop in the future.

51:26It's going to win because it's clocking in 400 million views on social. I'm going to put this thing on your favorite streaming network and you're going to go and open up a Happy Meal one day and see a big blue Pengu. You know, it's going to win because of that. The NFT is going to win because it's a small group of some of the coolest, most affluent, richest people in crypto. Everyone wants to sit at the cool kids table at the cafeteria. The Pudgy Penguins PFP is the cool kids. And it outperforms Staked ETH 10 out of 10 times for the next 10 years. You have my word. It's just going to happen. Right?

52:00And then Abstract is going to win and be a successful token and be a successful platform because of the integrity of the product that we build and the integrity of the ecosystem and the community that's galvanized around it. Not because it's some proxy to Pengu. you know, in my mind, like Abstract has to launch, you know, being the only competitor to base, and it should be a net more valuable token than Pengu. Like, I believe that, right? In terms of, you know, how it's indexed, at least in the short term. In the long term, I think Pengu has the opportunity to flip Doge and reach, you know, unattainable heights.

52:38But that's kind of the mindset around it. I think everyone wants there to be some sort of elaborate scheme when it's like, no, we just build better products and better communities and better brands than I think anybody else in the space. And to me, in a world where technology is not a moat, which I don't think it is, I think all of blockchain technology is being commoditized, right? Like that is where we're going to succeed. We're going to succeed because Pudgy Penguins is the best, because Abstract is the best, and because all these different pieces in the ecosystem are just better than other pieces in other ecosystems.

53:09You just mentioned Abstract sort of valuation, right i saw you mention big numbers on some podcasts online about abstract you said it would launch at multi-billion dollar valuation which already achieved with pengu there have been some big changes in the market structure over the last year their ones are launching at much lower valuation than they used to or at least their valuation is correcting quickly to not say dumping with haste at launch. I talked to Seb from Sofon, who is a neighbor to Abstract in the consumer layer two kind of landscape. Sofon launched at about 700 million FDV, I think.

53:53How realistic is your multi-billion dollar abstract launch given how the space has evolved and matured over the last year? It's interesting because abstract TGE and that token will be priced on the success of the Portal Super app more than it is the fact that it's a blockchain, I think. I think it's going to be, it's like a perfect example of this. It's like WorldChain is like one of the great sleepers of the blockchains out there. You should definitely try to go get Sam Altman on here if you're talking about moving up the ranks. That's a good target for you. I tried a few times, but not easy.

54:28I got two intros, but no answer. Yeah, that's a hard one. But if you get that one. So WorldChain is interesting. WorldChain is probably one of the great sleeper agents in the blockchain space. $20 billion L2, right? L2. It's a conduit, basically. I mean, probably not a conduit roll up, but the point of the matter is it's like no different than any other L2, but it's worth$20 billion. Sam Altman premium, sure. And then the authenticity layer, civil resistance, sure. where I really think they yield a lot of that valuation or at least half is in the World app. And if you ask the World Chain Foundation, they'll say the World app is the chain today, right?

55:12Meaning the app is the chain. Just like kind of like with Abstract, you don't really use Abstract if you're not using portal.abs.xyz. And so I think, and WorldChain wasn't even on my radar until three months ago when some venture investor who wanted to lead one of our rounds or wanted to send us a term sheet for a series eight said we were minded of a similar build. And, you know, in principle, Portal, our vision for it has always been like a super app. One website where you can do everything on chain, right? Like that sounds technically like a super app. You know, if you were to look at valuations today, what are the two biggest L2s in terms of valuation?

55:52You have WorldChain at$20 billion and if base was a token, base probably a$20 billion token, right? You'd probably put it there. The abstract build is somewhere in the middle. We are going big iOS. So we're building our iOS app. We're going big on killer features on the portal and building out features on that portal. So in the sense that we share similarities with WorldChain, we do in the sense that portal is the chain. world chain app is the chain or world app is the chain and then obviously you know base is going to be a gargantuan it's going to be a David versus Goliath battle no doubts about that but I think we can speak to culture better than they can though I said this maybe when I spoke to you last and I'll say it until the end of time no matter how corny people think Jesse Pollock is he is one of the great builders in our space and it's not even close Absolutely.

56:49You know, like I can't I can't point to three guys that I'd rather have on my team than that guy, truthfully. So you're going to let him cook and he's going to. But it's David versus Goliath. Right. Like that's how that's how we look at them. And and I look at our first year versus their first year. And I and that that's the roadmap that I'm following. but I think we will be comped if and when abstract TGEs I won't TGE it to answer your question directly I won't TGE it if it's not evident that I'm not getting comped somewhere in between the middle of base and world chain right like abstract has to be like a base world chain hybrid in terms of its build and product set which I think you know I'm not I'm not going to say it's anywhere near them those two today because you got to give credit where credit is due base insane world chain insane world app insane but when i i'm you know i told the the world would tg it in quarter four that would be the plan as long as we hit our goals whatever but like if i don't think it's a competitive and if and it's in the conversation of world and base i'm not tg it just because i said i'm i'm gonna do it in time no i'm doing i'm trying to optimize for maximum success here.

58:06But for us to succeed, we actually have to win. There's really like two cohorts of crypto founders. And I can't muster the energy to be in like this other cohort. But one cohort is like financial engineering scheme, schemers. And schemers is like a bad word because it has a negative connotation. But that's what they are. They're schemers, right? They know how to engineer the token. They have, you know, they have a couple hundred million dollars in capital through a couple of different vehicles. The float is lower than what it actually looks like. They're listed everywhere. They're buying out whatever airdrop they can.

58:40They can control the float and it's got a perpetual bid until the end of time. That's like financial engineering schemers, right? Which means like you can launch a token without any community, without any success, but you can engineer its success on the top 100, right? That's like - How much of crypto is that today? I would - Percentage-wise. I could tell you 35 to 50 % of the top 100 coins are built like this. I would have thought even higher. I would say probably even higher. I mean, let me change that. Probably 50 to 65. True. And like some in the top, Cardano's infamous for this. You know what I mean?

59:16Like, you know, it's one example, but there's many examples, right? You could easily say two thirds of the top 100 is built like this. the other but i'm i'm not interested in that cohort because like i i feel a lot i feel like a lot of shame in that that that doesn't like that doesn't put me on the mount rush that doesn't feed my ego so some people like to think i'm an egomaniac sure but that doesn't feed my ego so i don't want to do it right i actually want to win like i want to sit there and compete and then have value accrual based on winning because i also think the value is so much more sustainable if you can actually win.

59:49Like if base TGE'd, that thing would just rip forever, right? Because you can't argue that. It's like Solana, it's going to rip forever, right? But we actually want to, I actually want to win. Like I actually want to like, I want the data and the metrics and the users and the momentum to be competitive with base, to be competitive with world chain. If it's not, then like I'm not going to sit here and TGE something and sell you like a snake oil salesman and be like, you know, we're somewhere in between the middle of world chain and base, but like, don't look at our Dune analytics because they're like one one hundredth of theirs, right?

1:00:27I can tell you that's what we want to be now, right? But like, I can't go launch a token and be like, that's my selling point. I want to launch a token and be like, we're half of where base is and we did it in two thirds of the time, right? Like, where are we going to be two years from now, right? And everyone's going to get super bullish. We're half of where World Chain is. You know, we did it in two thirds of the time. You know, how bullish are you? Right? Like I want to be, and I want to be able to stand on that. And people be like, oh shit, they did it again. Right? Rather than just like, could you engineer some sort of multi-billion dollar token?

1:01:02For sure. If you understand the game, there's a group that understands the game. You can do it. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in actually winning the thing, which is going to be the hard part of this journey, unfortunately. we actually want to do it right and do something yeah we'll be a first let's link the abstract launch to the pengu launch there's been a fair amount of criticism we mentioned before about the pengu launch I was actually one of these people who criticized in a constructive fashion the distribution and I got murdered online I mean I understand the game too many tokens given to too many people who aren't long term community members and who just dumped that launch.

1:01:45I mean, you have a different argument, which is, hey, if only the token, the NFT holder hold it, then people don't want to buy it, right? So it's a good take. Let me address it because you did have some valid criticisms to it. And in principle, functionally, I'll tell you the bet that I'm making. You're functionally right, right? Like, is Pengu trading higher today if the airdrop isn't that massive? Yes. Did I feel totally disrespected and dudes just completely abused that penguin and that free money we gave them? Yes, right? The bet that I'm making is this. I'm making the bet that when those green candles start ripping and mania starts ripping, that little, those fractions, because there's still fractions in everyone's wallet.

1:02:29Everyone's wallet has a little bit. So part of it was like almost like a product placement, right? And so one, it was goodwill. If Pengu is actually going to flip Doge, right? It has to have a story. The story for Pengu, its inception, was for the people by the people. That might just sound like a tagline right now. But in retail mania, that is a story that the masses can really galvanize around. So the bet that I was trying to do was like, I wasn't trying to launch a$2 billion token and that be the ceiling and that be it forever. I'm going after the big kahuna. I'm going after Doge. You might look at that and other people might look at that and be like, this kid is nuts.

1:03:07You'll never flip Doge. Well, I'm trying to set the pieces up and tell the story so that we have the opportunity to, because I don't believe Doge can retain number one. I don't believe in this dino coin meta. I think that's so lame. I think that's so lame that these things, just because they were around for 10 years, they're priced more than all the new great innovations and people pushing the boundaries. I think that's so stupid. And so from my perspective, like, did I feel the pain? Yes. Did you feel the pain and other holders feel the pain? Yes. But I also think, dude, before the market gave out, Kevin, like the thing was up and to the right.

1:03:42That's true. It was up. You went down a bit and then it was up. It was down. No, it was doing the whole stairway to heaven thing. It was dipping for two days and then hitting new highs the next three days. And it's like, when's the last time you ever saw an airdrop with even a fraction of that size of magnitude go up? And the reason it was going up was because we blessed everyone. They loved it. Everyone loved it. Everyone was shilling Pengu. Everyone was aligned. It was like, you want to know our biggest mistake for abstract was right after Pengu, we should have raised an echo round. Why? Because like you'll look at like something like Mega ETH, for example.

1:04:13It's like so smart because it's like all of CTs, your bag holders. Yeah. Right. Same principle applies to this. At a certain point, everyone was a bag holder of Pengu. So everyone was shilling it. Except they got it for free. Whereas the echo round would be people are invested. Agreed. Agreed. So to a certain extent. But like I also wanted to give penguins the biggest percentage airdrop that so apes gave apes, I think, 10 or 15 percent. I wanted to beat that in terms of rewarding the community by like a big mile. I can't give 20, 25 percent to pudgy penguin holders. And then and then the whole token is just cashing out pudgy penguin holders.

1:04:51Solana, nobody galvanizes around that. That thing got the engagement. It did the virality. It did because people were like, bro, he's given tokens to everyone. and like, dude, guys do airdrops for 200 million and the token's down only. Dude, up until Trump and Melania, we were gonna go flip shit. I mean, we were right there, right? And then the market gave out. I would just say that this came maybe a month or two after Hyperliquid, right? Who did that kind of, I mean, playbook on a lot of things. One of them is rewarding very early participants who making them rich. Probably most of them are already rich, therefore won't dump the token, right?

1:05:32And so I actually had, I did this kind of thread and people kind of murdered me. And I was just saying, actually, I don't consider myself two years NFT holder, an early NFT holder. I think the people who red-pilled me even before I had you on the podcast, like Alex Vanellick, they deserve, they're already rich, but they deserve the freaking airdrop because they were here since many, many years, right? And when I wrote that, I had some Pudgy Penguin OGs reaching out in my DMs privately. and telling me that we're thinking about selling their NFT. And at that moment, I was like, oh shit. And actually even me, I have multiple.

1:06:07I was like, do I want to keep my NFTs when I feel like, because we had this hyper liquid example, right? When I feel like I'm either I hold the tokens, but I get dumped on by everyone else. Either, I mean, where is the reward for the people who've been here for four years? Not really feeling or not really there. I mean, obviously they received a lot of money, but if they're getting dumped on because they're the believer and they don't sell then the whole kind of dynamic is kind of twisted I would say. So the question is I mean for a day I was like fuck man and then I just thought in Luca we trust because that's what I've been doing since the beginning right?

1:06:46What did you learn from the Pengu launch that you will do very differently for the abstract token launch? I think you know it's an interesting take because I think we didn't use hyperliquid as our barometer. I thought it was two different things relatively. For us, Pengu, the story that we had to tell was this is the thing to bring everyone into the huddle. We're a mass market brand. I felt like we had to embody that and I just believe that if Pengu ever flips Doge, that how it started will play a huge part in that. I believe that. And that I think was the nucleus of the strategy. I think did certain holders feel spited?

1:07:45I think I think you totally I totally understand your perspective. People could just buy the NFT just beforehand. I mean then obviously they buy it more expensive right and then the whole is the whole price dynamic but I Concretely it means hey, I've been here for four years. I mean, I haven't I've been here for two years But people have been here since the freaking bear market and they bought the thing when it was worth almost nothing There's one thing I'll tell you and this is probably the only time I'm gonna say it Because I'm not gonna say it when everyone's speculating But I'm not gonna let you do this thing where you can buy my penguin One day before the airdrop and get the thing.

1:08:22I'm not doing that this time So that was one of my big learnings because I hated that. I hated that guys, now granted the floor price went up, and like, you know, there will be a time where like you should get that whole NFT run up around that speculation. But like one day before, it's not going to happen that way. It's not going to happen one day before. So my advice to the people listening is like, you want to get your pudgy now before you get it when everybody's clamoring in to get it. Because I didn't appreciate that. They kind of like abused the penguin. I felt like we got abused for a little bit.

1:08:57You see the NFT prize going like. No, I felt used. I felt used. And I feel like certain community members felt used. I feel like a lot of people felt used. And I didn't appreciate that. And I can tell you there was a moment there when I was down only. There's a lot of things I learned. And I'm going to make sure because, you know, you even messaged me. like the time in which we did it dude if i had like three more weeks i could have been way more thoughtful right like there was like i gave too much money to like i could have gave more money to certain communities that i should have gave money to that i didn't or or to you know certain key figures and things like that we just didn't have the time it was so not you know so i'm gonna I'm going to I'm I'm working on the abstract TG thoroughly starting like July.

1:09:51You know, I'm going to have six months if I do launch it in quarter four. I'm going to have six months to figure it out and do it right. And I think just any of those hiccups or those feelings and things were like, oh, why didn't he do it this way or do it that way? I still stand on get on having six million eligible. I still stay on that because, dude, it is the only airdrop of that size that literally went up into the right. I'm telling you it was because of the airdrop. Now, when the market flipped, dude, telling you Trump, Melania, spy down 25%. Don't overthink it. Don't think that. Don't think it was like some dudes.

1:10:25I did catch a couple of Sybils running claims. And that's why we shut down the claim early because we got real data that like there was a couple guys who made, you know, a couple million dollars who did. But like, trust me when I say the data, like that was the right strategy to me. I think there was a level of thoughtfulness around certain organizations or people or groups within the community that I could have done a lot better job in terms of rewarding and making feel special because they are the heart of this entire ecosystem. I could have done a better job there. But that was just the nature of time and the sprint.

1:11:00And I also felt maybe the same way that you did. And, you know, you drive from this as you want. Like I felt used and abused there for a minute, especially when things started going down. I felt like they kind of ate me up and just kind of threw me to the wayside. I didn't like that. And, you know, if you felt that way or if other community members felt that way, just know that I'm conscious of that. And I'm going to make sure that for this next one, I'm really hyper focusing on my core nucleus, my power users, my top 1%, 2%, my hyper liquid top 1%, 2 % and making sure that it goes to those guys.

1:11:36and the people who are buying the dips. And I wanted to be a lot more methodical with the data, but I respect the person buying now, not the person who's buying two days before TGE. That person, I don't care about. I care about the person who's buying the dips now. And I'm recording all this data and you're seeing we're giving out soul bounds. We're getting really methodical with this because we're gonna learn from all of the mistakes on the Pengu one. Thank you so much, Luca, for this amazing honesty and passion as usual. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Time to buy more Pudgy Penguin. Thanks for your honesty and passion.