PoolTogether Community Podcast #33 with Livster from the PoolTogether Community

This is the PoolTogether Community Podcast. PoolTogether is the world's number one no-loss prize savings account. You can visit pooltogether.com to deposit. You're listening to the PoolTogether Community Podcast. I'm your host Tim, aka Hot Mike, aka Live in a Speedo, and I'm here with Livester from the PoolTogether Community.

And countless other communities. Livester, thank you so much for spending an hour with us today.

Thank you for having me.

And you know, it can be less than an hour if you want. Like at any point, if you just wanna leave, that's fine. We can, we can end it right there.

Okay. Uh, yeah, that's, I'm, I'm glad I have a way out, you know, just in case, you know.

That's right.

Yes. I've not been on a podcast before. Can you tell?

Oh, this is great. No, this is, you know, like we're in court together. It's fine. This is the new way to do podcasts. So, hey, Livster, I want to know, I want to know all about you. And so please enlighten the Pull Together community about how you got into crypto, how you got here, what are you doing, what are you excited about? Let's start there. And then I'm sure from there, questions will flow.

Yeah, definitely. So I'm Liv, AKA Livster. I have quite a background. Whenever I try to tell people how I ended up in crypto, it's a very like, it wasn't a straight line, that's for sure. But I went to art school and I have a degree in communication design, which is like advertising and writing and graphic design and all the things. And out of school I worked in photography. And from working in photography, I got really into makeup art and then I became a makeup artist. And then from there I started a makeup blog that got very popular and realized that I really like writing. I always knew I liked writing, but that became my strength. And then from there. I started writing about other things other than makeup, and now I work in crypto. And there were some, you know, other stops along the way, but now I work in crypto full-time and I contribute to some DAOs and do all the crypto things, buy too many NFTs and don't sell enough. And yeah, that's where I'm at.

How does one work in crypto full-time?

Yeah, that was, I wasn't expecting it, I'll tell you that. I worked for a tech startup before I worked in crypto full-time, TM. I, that startup was a music lesson startup and they did really well during the pandemic. And then when the pandemic was over, they were like, uh-oh, we can't have you on anymore. Like, we can't pay you, so sorry. So then I was like, huh, I really like crypto. I've been get— I was starting to contribute to some DAOs. I was in Boys Club. That was like my first big adventure in the world of crypto where I was like, oh, this is not just one type of person. There's all different types of people here. And I was beginning to write for a few different publications about crypto. So I decided to start, you know, applying to crypto jobs and it went really well. I was surprised. My like big moment, my like turning point moment was There's a DAO/makeup brand called Crypto Besties, and Rima, the girl who founded it along with her co-founder, uh, Jaya, she reached out to me about a Twitter thread I wrote and she was like, hey, let's get on a call like right now. And she like immediately sent me a Google Hangout or Google Meet, whatever, uh, link. And I was like, oh, okay, I don't know this person, but let's go. And I hopped on a call and she was like, you're really good at writing. Like, you're really good at writing technical stuff. in a way that makes it fun to read and easy to understand. You should do this. Like, you should, you should work in crypto. And I was like, okay, I'll take your advice. And then like a few weeks later, I was, you know, interviewing for jobs and, and now I've been working at the place I work for like 4 or 5 months now. So that's like 10 years in crypto time.

Where do you work?

I work for Interlay, which is a, um, decentralized Bitcoin bridge. On, uh, Polkadot. So that'll take an hour to explain that.

Do you do technical writing for them?

Yeah, I do. I'm their social media manager. Um, and it's like a, a small team, so I do all the Twitters and also a lot of the writing, the content on the website, as well as stuff like press releases and, you know, um, community updates. And all the things.

How do you keep it fresh? Like you're, you're writing about Bitcoin bridges, right?

Mm-hmm.

Like at some point you run outta stuff, right?

Yeah. I'm so glad you asked me this question because like when I started working there, I was like, all right, my mission is to make this not like other Bitcoin communities. Like let's stray from the norm 'cause it's a little bit aggressive. Like when I was first trying to like research what the current Bitcoin community looks like, I was appalled by the madness that I saw on Twitter and just like the crazy political, like tinfoil hat vibes. And I was like, this, this can't be the whole place. Like, it can't be like that. Like, and the point of Interlay is to connect Bitcoin with other chains like Ethereum and, you know, Cosmos and Avalanche and pretty much anything you could think of. So, I was like, how are we going to make this something that people don't cringe when they like hang out in our Twitter Spaces and stuff? So I started doing some research into people who are doing forward-thinking stuff with Bitcoin. And actually this past few weeks we've been launching IBTC, which is like the, the big flagship product. And I've met with a, a cool bunch of people. One of them works for the Bitcoin Policy Institute and she's an environmental scientist studying like sort of the social, ecological, and economical impacts of Bitcoin and how it could kind of move to the future and how it, I think it's more like a, I guess like a, a social movement. I think some people see it as just because Bitcoin is more of like a, it's just like the, like the base level decentralization. But yeah, I guess also talking about all the new bridge it, like the things we're bridging to and what you can do with it. Because a lot of people just see Bitcoin as one thing, but it is, it can be many things. It just takes some imagination. But yeah, it's definitely been a challenge to find interesting people that aren't like super political or just like weird and cringey, like almost religious about Bitcoin. Yeah. We're more into interoperability and Working together versus like having one thing and one thing only.

2 questions based off of what you just said. Um, I have to get them out now, uh, just lest I not forget them. The first one is, how did you get connected with Interlay? Because like, were you— it doesn't sound like you were into that. Like you just found a— it sounds like there was a job there that you saw a job posting and you got into it and like you had no prior connections. Is that right? Did I miss that in your story?

No, it's true. I actually got the job through Surge, which is a women's group in, in crypto. They have a job board. They've since like really grown a lot. That was also one of my first, first groups that I was a part of. I don't know if they're, they would consider themselves a DAO. I think they take that very seriously in terms of like when they want to actually become a DAO, but they have an NFT project now. And they're, it's called the Surge Passport. They're like sort of like stylized drawings and most, the most value I've ever seen from an NFT has come from, from them for sure. Um, in terms of having like, uh, what's it called? That word, utility TM. Yeah. In terms of utility, they have a ton, but they have a job board and I found Interlay, um, through that job board and that's how I got the job.

Man. How do you, so you must have had creative freedom in approaching this as far as strategy goes in target audience or primary audience, because what if the primary audience is cringy? You know, like what if the path to most growth for the platform is the cringe, is the tinfoil hats, is the maxis, the, you know, the people you might not want to write for. How did you navigate like determining primary audience and— and making it one that you felt comfortable writing for?

That's a great question. Yeah, I don't think they would've hired me, honestly, just based on what, first of all, the fact that they're, you know, putting effort into putting job postings on boards that specifically cater to more diverse people in crypto. They wanted, they specifically worked to hire more people from different demographics. And I think that was the first signifier to me. And then there was also, of course, like a rigorous interview process. And it feels good to be at a part, a point in my career where I'm sort of like equal in the interview process in terms of being like, okay, I'm also interviewing you and making sure you're not, you know, you don't think that like vaccines have microchips in them and stuff, or like, you know, I don't know, crazy, uh, what's it called? QAnon stuff that some Bitcoin people are into. Um, sorry if there's any QAnon people in the audience, I've just alienated you, but, um, you could still hang out. Um, I'm sure we can relate on some things. I don't know. But yeah, I think like I asked questions that were specific to like finding out what kind of people they are. And they also had me do a few tests beforehand. So in reaction to the tests that I did in terms of like writing some content and seeing, seeing how they reacted to it from the get-go, it was pretty obvious they were looking to create a new narrative for Bitcoin, not to cater to the current narrative because all the current narrative is doing is alienating people and stopping the flow of like wide, widespread, more adoption in cryptocurrency. Because most people's first experience of cryptocurrency or entering the cryptocurrency world is Bitcoin. So if we want to make crypto more widely accepted and adopted, we have to sort of change the narrative of Bitcoin. To get there, I think. So, yeah.

But when you change, so, but yes, changing the narrative, I love that. But then at some point you bump up against Bitcoin's purpose, which widely stated is the gold to be the gold and the, the HODL fuel. And the more utility you, you add to it, the less the, you know, the, the, the more you pull it away from its purpose. So is that what you're doing? Are you trying to change Bitcoin fundamentally?

Yes, I would say so. Yeah. I would say so. Yeah. Because the point of, like, the, the point of a lot of bridges are centralized, whether that means like all of the, the value of the bridge or the assets in the bridge are in one place. The way that Interlay works is that all of, all of the assets are held in vaults and vaults are run by individuals. So if someone tries to hack or attack one vault, it wouldn't affect all of the vaults. So there wouldn't be some kind of wide, you know, attack that would destroy the bridge. But I think that having it built via decentralization on Polkadot too, because Polkadot plays a role here from the beginning, is fundamentally changing Bitcoin and, and radically changing Bitcoin to be— it, it's for everybody. So like the hodlers can put their, Bitcoin in a vault and earn a small amount of return on it. Or they, you know, someone who is hodling Bitcoin can get IBTC and use it via the Polkadot ecosystem with Ethereum or, you know, any other major chain. Ethereum's a big one, obviously, but, you know, they could use it on Solana and they could use it on, you know, whatever you can really think of. So yeah, I think the purpose of it is to bring the whole ecosystem together because that's sort of what's holding crypto back as an industry. I think one of the things is—

And you're full-time at Interlay and then you've, then you have these other DAOs that you're participating in. Is that also full-time? Do you have full-time, 2 full-time jobs? Is that what's happening? How do you manage all that?

My girlfriend would say that I do, just because she's like, you work too much. But I really tried to like cut it back. Before I was working at Interlay, I was, Part-time with one place and doing freelance part-time for like years. So I was really used to like having a lot of stuff going on. And then when I got into crypto, it was like, you know, there's so many things I wanted to explore, especially when I started getting into DAOs and NFTs. I was like, oh my God, there's so many things I wanna contribute to. There's so many things I wanna write about. And I got super burnt out. And, uh, then when I started at Interlay, it was like, okay, it's time to like reassess what's important to me and where I wanna put my time and where I wanna just, there's like certain things I wanna just be a part of a community and, and not be as active. And then there's some things I wanna contribute to in a more, um, meaningful way. And I recently took this class, I guess you could call it a class. It's like a cohort. It's called 2+. It's, um, I was in their first cohort and it's a mental fitness cohort for people who contribute to DAOs and work in crypto. So that's been like the past 6 weeks that's really like opened my eyes to like how poorly I was managing my time and my energy before. So that's helped a lot in terms of time management and, you know, trying to do all the things and, and curating, I guess, like what I'm doing.

Can you please, please, please give us those, the, the, that secret sauce? Like what are some tips that, You could help that could help immediately pull together and any listener who is affiliated with any DAO who is overwhelmed right now.

Yeah, you're probably, if you're involved in DAOs or any crypto industry at all, you're probably overwhelmed right now. Let's be real. Like the first day of that cohort, we, like a lot of the classes were in this thing called GatherTown. I don't know if you've ever used it, but it's like a little metaversy type thing. And like we were typing, you know, someone asked like, how are you feeling right now and why did you start taking this class? And everyone's like exhausted, overwhelmed, I hate my life. Like, you know, all these things. Like, and I was like, oh, it's not just me. Um, so the first thing we learned was like breathwork and meditation, which is like the crunchiest thing we learned in the whole, um, cohort. Um, and it was really—

Super crunchy. Super crunchy thing.

I love a little granola crunch. Um, but yeah, it was definitely like, okay, if the whole thing was breathwork, I'd be like, maybe not. But the rest of it was like a ton of, um, really useful, not that the breathwork isn't useful, it was very useful, but in collaboration with meeting planning, schedules, boundary setting, how to be a leader amongst other, you know, how to be a leader in a way that's still decentralized. Like we've had like whole classes on like conflict resolution and like it was all geared towards people in DAOs. So like one of the speakers teaching a class was The Ready, which is really awesome. They're sort of like an agency for startups and they've started to move over towards DAOs, but they gave a really amazing presentation on like how the traditional workforce is like a stoplight in terms of like a red light, green light. And the stoplight itself is like the centralized leadership. And DAOs are more like a traffic circle, like a, you know, it's constantly moving and you have to pay attention to everything around you to make sure there's no crashing or accidents or cutting people off. And you have to be mindful. And that was like, oh wow, this is like a great analogy. And then from there, there were like, you know, scheduling And time blocking and, and, you know, making sure you have enough time to unwind and spend time with your friends and family, work-life balance, all that stuff. We use this little, um, tool that integrates into Discord called Mochi, like the Japanese ice cream. And the Mochi is like this little, like, thing that you talk to every day and you can, um, bond with it by giving it ETH. Mm-hmm. And if you bond your ETH over a period of time, if you log every single day, you'll get tokens like mochi tokens. But if you don't, if you don't log your progress, it's like slashes a percentage of your ETH that you bonded with it. So it, you can choose to put stakes with it, but basically you give it a goal and then every day you check in with the goal. So my goal for the 6-week cohort was to get more sleep by going to bed earlier and waking up earlier. And I will say at the end of the, the 6 weeks, it, it's, there's been a big change. So that was one of the big things too. It's a little mochi.

So how much ETH did you lose?

I didn't bond any ETH because like we were working with groups and I was like, I don't know these, cuz like in, in our case, in the cohort, like if anyone else in your group didn't do their goal of the day either, like you would also lose. So I was like, hmm, let's do this test run and then maybe like when I'm doing it still low, I can bond some ETH.

That's a lot of pressure. Wow. So it's not only you getting punished, but everyone in your group.

Yeah, I have. Yeah, exactly. Um, and yeah, you can do it without bonding any ETH and it will still like tell you that if you forgot and it will still talk to you every day, but like you won't get any tokens as a reward for doing, doing the goal check-in every day.

And this is a Discord?

It's a Discord bot, but they also have a website and it's like an actual little mochi with a face. And you, you can like change its flavor and stuff. It's really cute and it records everything. So like when you check in every day, it's like, how are you feeling? Like, what have you done to work towards your goal? And it records it on the blockchain so you can go back and look at your progress over time. Um, and you could do that as like a team. You could do it like with your workplace or in a DAO, or you can do it like by yourself too. Um, and it doesn't, I will say this is one nice thing too in terms of work-life balance. It doesn't record on the weekends, so if you like, don't like being online on the weekends, it won't like deduct any points or anything. So.

That's great. Well, thanks for that tip. We have to include that in the podcast notes. That's great. Little cutie emoji taking my E, taking my friend's E cuz I'm a failure.

At first I was like, oh man, I'm starting to like not be a fan of this little fella. But over time I was like, okay, this is actually helping. Because it gives you some kind of like incentive.

We've been talking, Livester, you and me and others in the PoolTogether community about DAO structure and about partnerships and about multi-delegator tool and about marketing and about emails and such. And so how did you get involved with— how did you even get into PoolTogether? How did this all start?

Well, I got into PoolTogether because of Boys Club. And hold on, let me turn off my notifications 'cause it's annoying me. Hold on a second. You can still hear me, right?

Yep.

All right, cool. So I got into PoolTogether through Boys Club. It was like, I don't remember which, like one of the first episodes of Boys Club, Layton was on it talking about Milady's and like, like breaking down a tweet. And at, at that point, I don't remember when that was, but I had not used DeFi at all. Like I hadn't, Ever touched DeFi, which is kind of crazy because I had already been into crypto for a long time. Like, I've, I don't think I mentioned this, but I started using crypto in like 2011, 2012. So like a long time, but I had not used any DeFi, anything. So that one was like, okay, PoolTogether sounds pretty chill. Like it's not like high risk. It's, it seems like a cool community. So I sort of like skirted around like actually using it for a while. And then one day I asked a question in Discord. I don't even remember what I was asking, but it was probably something along the lines of like, how do I know this is working or something? 'Cause I had no idea how to use anything. And like everybody was so nice and so helpful and like welcoming. And then Jark was like, you should come to a DAO onboarding call. And I was like, okay. And then I went to that and I was like, oh, this is like really awesome. And basically it was, it was Jark. He was like, you should come hang out in the community calls and like just spend more time and pull together Discord and blah, blah, blah. And like through that I realized how awesome this community is and like how, I don't know, I have like a big, I'm a big fan of people who are advocating for more like healthy financial goals and like savings protocols that aren't like promising you the world and that are more realistic. Um, so that we can all get better at, at saving money together in a fun way. Um, that's what really like sealed the deal for me, for sure.

How many Discords are you in? Like that you actually may like check on, let's say, I will say a weekly basis.

Oh God, I don't even know. Like, I, I, I like, I'm, I do curate my Discord, so like I have like, you know, you can add different—

What's your, yeah, tell us your Discord strategy.

Yeah. So I have like, you know, those like folders you could put Discords into on the side. Oh yeah. So I have like folders and like when something's like on the brink of, of leaving, if I'm like almost ready to let it go, I'll put it in this folder and it's like the Marie Kondo, like, does this bring you joy folder? And I'll sort of like, you know, marinate on it for a week. And then after a week, if I'm still not into that Discord, I'll just like get You know, remove myself from it. Um, I would say the ones I check on a weekly basis, oh man, 15 maybe.

Wow.

Is that a lot?

When you, you're checking them, are you like, what are you looking for when you're checking them?

So there's like, so I have them ranked on the side too. So like Pull Together's number 3, so y'all are pretty important.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Interlay's number 1, obviously, cuz that's my job. So like I'm in there the most and I'm, That's where we communicate for work too. So that one's fairly important. And then, yeah, I don't know, there's some that I like, like RadarDAO is a DAO that I'm in that is like a futures incubator, I guess you could say. It's like a futures agency as a DAO. And we share signals, which is like one of my favorite things ever. It's just like, what do you see popping up on the internet that you think is gonna be a trend? It's always like weird AI. Like robots or like, you know, like DeSci or like any kind of like big trend that you see coming. And then people kind of like, you know, throw ideas back and forth and share links. So I spend a lot of time in there just like looking around and checking it out.

But so you're not talking about futures like a financial project, you're talking about like a futurism, like just trend watching, or, or are you talking about futures financially?

No, it's like futures, like future trends and there's like different categories. So there's like, you know, there's a financial category, but there's also like science, healthcare, you know, lifestyle, fashion, everything like you could think of. And then if you see something big coming along, like recently there was this huge surge in trash art. I don't know if you know what trash art is.

I am assuming it's art made of trash.

No, it's like, well, kind of, it's like a Tezos thing. I don't know if you're familiar with Tezos, but like, It's just like people who got kicked off of other NFT platforms for making what was considered trash art moved to Tezos and started making their own like extra trashy trash art. And then like it became—

Oh,

yeah. It became like a sort of like punk movement. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I've seen that, but I've also saw there was a DAO that was, send us your trash. It was kind of like junk drawer or trash bin or something. Trash DAO. But it was like, send us your worthless NFTs and you get like coins for throwing, giving them your junk NFTs.

Wow. I just send them my whole hidden folder on OpenSea.

No, don't interact. Don't interact with anything that you don't know. This is not financial advice also.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I don't touch those like weird like airdrop NFTs that are like, I don't know. But yeah, there's stuff that I've minted that I'm like, oh, why did I do that? This is now gonna sit in my hidden folder and haunt me forever. But yeah, so like for example, like trash art was like a big trend the past couple weeks. So we started a thread on that and then the Radar DAO Discord has a bot in it that like concentrates all the signals and puts them into this platform online. It's really cool. And the people who run Radar are like geniuses or something, 'cause I don't know how they do this, but like it's becoming an agency. So like, A company can come in and they could say, you know, like, we're trying to like come up with some ideas of how we can get involved. We're a fashion brand and we wanna get involved in the metaverse. So then some people from Radar DAO will come together and sort of research and pitch ideas to that company. And then the DAO gets paid and those people who are in that pod will get paid more. But anyways, that's one I check a lot. Um, there's like, I would say there's 10 that are like outside of the folders that I check. Like there's 5 I check every day. There's 10 I check multiple times a week and maybe 15 or 20 I check once a week. And then there's some that I check that when they have a little notification next to it and that's it.

How do we get to Radar? What is that?

RadarDAO. Um, I think it's just Radar something. Hold on a second. They're really cool and awesome. I definitely recommend. Yeah. RadarDAO.xyz.

Awesome. That's so good. Thanks for sharing that. That's really great. And you know, this is gonna be, I think I've already had them as the, I've already been in their Discord and then I took it away or something and now I'm at it again. So there's also that, there's also like the, oh, I, you know, the regret for leaving, for leaving a Discord and then re-adding it again and having to go back through it and everything. There's gotta be a term for that.

There's a total, yeah, exactly. And sometimes like for NFT projects, I'll come back to a Discord and it'll be like, oh, everybody who was here early got like whitelist spots or whatever. And I'm like, I left. But yeah, at this point I have to be really like intense about my Discords because I can't, when there's like, you know, 200 notifications, it just gives me so much anxiety. I can't deal with it. So yeah. What doesn't bring you joy, you have to let go of.

How do you not, so I don't, I forget if I've asked you this question cuz it was in my, it's been floating around in my brain, but how do you not get tired of writing?

Ooh, man. Uh, I think I've been like writing my whole life. So like before I even went to college, I like, you know, was applying to art school, but I was also applying for writing programs. And like, you know, I recently visited my dad. Um, I'm from New Jersey and like, I, my closet of my like childhood room is like just full of notebooks from like very early on. I would just always write all the time. So I don't think I could ever get tired of writing. Um, sometimes I get tired of writing certain things or write certain subjects. Um, I can tell when that's happening when I'm like avoiding something. Like if I have like an assignment or a project and I'm like, you know, I keep beating around the bush or like putting it off, I'm like, okay, well I'm burning myself out in that area. So that can be, I guess, difficult, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of writing.

'Cause I've always had this, this like, so I do music. And I do a little bit of writing and I have like these creative endeavors. However, if, as soon as I like started getting paid for it, it kind of, it hurts it. And I have a friend who, she draws, she paints brownstones in Brooklyn and does watercolor pieces and such. And it blew up. Like all these realtors wanted her to do their paintings for their buildings to add value to like, you know, Like as a present to the person that purchased the brownstone. And it ruined, or I, yeah, I think she stopped because it like, it ruined the fun of doing the thing for the love of the thing. Yeah. And it became a, I need to do this and make money kind of thing. And that it was a side hustle, but still it was, it kind of ruined it for her. So she doesn't do that. She doesn't take money for these drawings and now she just gives it away. I think that's the case with her. But so anyway, but yeah, there's this kind of, or some sort of trick to like be able to, and maybe it's like true passion. Like, of course you need hobbies in life and those hobbies shouldn't be the things that necessarily you're doing for work because they need to be hobbies. They need to be like no pressure flow states. But when you're really passionate about something or when you're really good at something and it becomes your profession, I don't know. That's really interesting to me. Like my wife's a pastry chef and she comes home and watches Food Network. And baking programs. And that just blows my mind that you're in the kitchen all day and then you come home and watch people be in the kitchen. She can watch this show called, uh, the, it's called The Beast, is it? And it's all, people are flipping out cuz it's like very accurately portrays kitchens and I can't watch it cuz it stresses me out, but she loves it. And so it just baffles the mind that you're in this 24/7. Why do you wanna be in it even more?

Right, exactly. Like it's, yeah. Also, like I used to work in a, at a restaurant, like my first big job was like a waitress. job for like 2 or 3 years when I was in high school. And oh man, it's a very high stress environment where you're constantly moving, which some, you know, some people that works for them. But yeah, I think for me it's like when something is, when you're so passionate about something like reading and writing for me, like no matter what, how many times I ruin it by trying to make money from it, like for a while I definitely was like, I hate writing now. Like, I, I had gotten very successful on Medium, but like in order to continue being successful on Medium, you have to kind of keep like churning out content and hoping that it hits. And like I, my like parody stupid comedy pieces were doing really well. So like I was just sort of like forcing this like funny quote unquote content, but like really the, the stuff that, that was really good was the stuff that like when I wasn't trying at all. I was like, I'm just gonna write this ridiculous story because I feel like it. And then, you know, boom, it went completely, like there was a few stories that were in there that went completely viral. And like once I started trying to recreate that, it just wouldn't happen. And, and I didn't like what I was writing. I didn't like the actual end result. So I think it's like a balance. Um, when I was trying to be a writer full-time too, I just like, for a while I was writing for Ranker, which is like this, you know, content website where you vote on stuff. And I was writing for their Weird History, which I love history. I love weird history and I was really into it, but it was like after the 100th article, I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like, I can't write about weird Victorian paranormal hunters and like, you know, French werewolves from the 1700s. Like, I can't, like, it's awesome at first, but after a while it started to like really fry my brain. So I think, I don't know, I think I'll always be a writer and always love writing, but it's like, The actual medium, I guess, the actual method of writing changes. Yeah, I think like with Web3 and crypto, it's, there's such a wide variety of stuff going on within the industry that it's like hard to get bored because, you know, if I'm tired of writing about DAOs, then I can write about NFTs. If I'm tired of writing about, you know, cryptocurrency, I could write about You know, I like right now I'm like obsessed with like science DAOs. Like, so yeah, I, I'll just like follow what I'm like really excited about. And the good thing about having a full-time job is that I can follow what I'm excited about without having to worry about taking on a bunch of freelance work.

Um, are you integrating what you're excited about into your work?

Yeah. Yeah. Because like, like I'll just like write about something for fun and like realize like 2 hours later that I've written like, like a, a novella about like trash art and that like, oh, okay. So now, like for example, I got really into trash art and gathered all these resources and wrote about it in my like personal Notion page just for fun. And then Forefront, which is another DAO, reached out to me and they were like, hey, like we really want, you know, some more writing. We saw what you were doing somewhere else and blah, blah, blah. And I pitched them the trash art idea and they're like, oh, we love this. So that's like a really great example of, of like Not luck, but like it works out a lot of the times, the stuff that I'm excited about or obsessed with, um, it shows in my work and the writing itself is more interesting because of it. So that's good too. Like if I'm really into something, it can be, people can usually tell, and then that writing gets picked up more.

I'm getting some, uh, speaking requests, but we, we normally have a chat room. I just don't have the permissions. I don't have the power to make a chat room where people could ask questions right now. Um, so sorry, Amir, but, um, maybe if you wanted to post chat, if we wanted to do, uh, just stuff in general, I think that would work fine. If you had a question, Amir, just, just put it in general and I'll, I'll make sure I, I ask Livester about it. So Livester, um, Liv, uh, Livvy, do you go by Livvy? No, no, absolutely not.

Used to call me that just to like piss

me off. Oh, so you have like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, people can call me whatever. My mom calls me Tim Tim. Timmy's fun. Yeah. Timbo. Timbo's not so much. Yeah.

Yeah. Timbo's, I feel like Jimbo is the only way that works. And Jimbo is like the cool guy at the barbecue who's like,

yeah,

someone's uncle who wears Hawaiian shirts all the

time. And there's also, I mean, we can go off a whole, like, there's no one, no adult I know named Timmy. There's many Jimmy. Like, why is that? Jimbo, maybe James is a more powerful name. This is not what we're talking about. Hey, we are, so with PoolTogether, we're talking about DAOs. We're talking about structuring. What does PoolTogether DAO look like? We're talking about, you know, getting partnering. What I love about Pull Together is the, is our desire to partner with others in Web3 to move the ball forward and to get more people into crypto. And so that, may that be with boysclub.eth, may that be with Bankless, with, you know, these neobanks, with Coinbase, even whomever, whatever we can do to kind of grow the cool people involved in this and grow adoption. That's what we're all about. Any thoughts on how PoolTogether could continue to be warm and fuzzy PoolTogether, really good at community and customer service and reaching out and productive and like, you know, getting marketing campaigns off the ground and getting, you know, really great written content out there and being strategic as well. As we are, as you said, like a roundabout rather than like a traffic light.

Yeah. So like scaling without losing the secret sauce.

Totally.

Right. Yeah, it's hard. It's like really, like, also I've been trying to like figure out the answer to why DAOs are struggling so much with like contributors and like organization. And then like, I like, to be honest, I haven't really found the answer. But it's something that I like research a lot because I'm, I'm super curious about it, but Um, it's, it's really hard because you have so many quality people who wanna contribute, but then without decentralized leadership, how do those people, like, how does everybody, how does the work go through the traffic circle without there being an incident? Like, what if someone's car breaks down in the middle of it? You know, what are they gonna do? Um, they have to call 911, I guess, you know, or like for help. So who's 911 in PoolTogether's instance? You know, like, so I guess—

I love it. You keep going with the metaphor. This is great. And then, That's true. And then you gotta call 911 and then there's a baby in a baby carriage that's wiping across the, the roundabout. What do you do about that? So good.

Yeah. Now I'm thinking of like the game Frogger, which I used to love as a kid and like who's Frogger in this situation trying to cross the street with all these cars whizzing around, um, really fast. But yeah, so it's hard because there's no real like one single answer, but I do think like what Pull Together's ethos and like, I'm gonna say secret sauce. The secret sauce is so powerful. Um, what's the thing in Powerpuff Girls? Like ingredient X or whatever, like, um, the last secret ingredient or whatever, like is so powerful and potent for Pull Together that no matter how large you scale, it's like truffle oil. Like you'll still be able to taste the deliciousness. Um, So yeah, I feel like keeping, like, as long as everybody is aware and like passionate about that secret sauce, which is, you know, saving money, learning how to be more financially literate and responsible, but in a fun way together. Like the together part is like the big part. Um, if you go to a community call, it becomes very obvious how like friendly and happy everybody is to be there. And how, you know, the markets might change, situations might change, things outside of our control might change, but the vibes always stay the same. And the vibes are of like accepting everybody and being kind and helping others and welcoming people in to DeFi in a way that's accessible and not overwhelming. So, I think as long as that is held true as you scale, you know, DAO tools are getting better every day. So continuing to, to develop with, with the development of DAOs in general will help smooth out that traffic circle with time. Sorry, my cat's trying to get out. The door's open, man.

Is that the bell? There's a, there's a bell on your kitty?

Yeah. Yeah. Moishi has a bell because he's violent. So I know if he's going to hurt someone.

Oh, if he's like prowling around the corner, like ready, ready to strike, like the raptor.

Yeah. And he just got a little bit older, but he, he's like still kind of a kitten. So he's very like crazy. And, and his older brother Merlin wants to know, I think, when he's coming. So.

That's so good.

Yeah.

So I, I'm really, I'm really torn about this because I know that you need strategy and I know that you need mission and vision in Web3. I know that you need A way forward. You need people on the same page. But I've never worked in an environment where the page changes so much. Meaning like even people I'm talking to over a couple weeks scheduling people for this podcast, even I find out 2 weeks later that that project's done now, it doesn't exist, or that they moved to a different company or protocol or DAO. Um, it's just so volatile and there's so much changing that, um, I, I, you know, and I've heard like people say the way that you do marketing, you do, it doesn't change if you're doing, like the basics are still the basics. The foundational principles are still the foundational principles. And at this point I'm like, I don't think so. I think this is different. I think this is the one thing that's probably different. 'Cause I've just, I, so I feel like to succeed in Web3, in crypto, there needs to be this constant desire to learn and this ability to pivot and like, you know, meld strategy and almost like find connections where there were none. And Liv, you, that's what you do. Yeah. I mean, you're on Radar, you're finding out about science DAOs, and that's, those science DAOs are gonna directly play into whatever you're trying to do next because That's just the way the world works right now. So I have ADD and this satisfies my ADD. Any other tips to keep nimble in this kind of environment and yet still be like strategic about what you write about, what you do, who you're targeting?

Yeah. So hot take, I think like, I don't know, I think ADHD is like a superpower in Web3 because There's something great about constantly having new stuff to like dive into. For me, a big part of like me abandoning certain things is like outside of my control. Like once I've spent all my brain energy on something, I can't, like, it's hard for me to force interest in stuff. So I think that's like a positive for me in terms of Web3. But I do think it's different. I think— That like anybody who says that it's not different might not work in marketing because like once you actually work in the marketing side of, of Web3, it's like, yeah, like for, for example, you know, Interlay is launching, launching InterBTC, IBTC, this, you know, in the next coming weeks. Yesterday we had all these plans for like Twitter Spaces and, you know, things were working out and then Nomad, the Nomad bridge gets hacked and there's like millions of, you know, dollars lost. of a wrapped Bitcoin asset. So then we had to sit there and be like, okay, like, is this going to change our plans at all? Does this, how are we going to shift our marketing? Do any of our partners, are they affected in any way? You know, so that kind of like changed things a bit. And in the end, we decided to go forward with things exactly as planned because it didn't affect us directly. But like with the mindfulness that some of our partners were affected and how to approach them in a way that's respectful and like, not like, haha, we weren't hacked and you were like, that's not cool. But like also like, How can we help you? Like, how can we help move the space forward and protect this from happening to anybody else? And how can we incorporate that in our marketing in a way that's not like we're trying to sell anything, but we're just trying to like bring more security and decentralization to the space? So things are constantly changing and, you know, sentiment around certain things are changing too. Like there's like, you know, memetic culture, like the way the, how fast ideas move through Web3 is like undeniable. Like one day on Twitter everyone's like, I hate Coinbase and I hope they die. And the next day they're like, defend Coinbase. And it's like, wait, what's even happening? Like if you take like a week off of, of social media in Web3, you come back and you're like, am I like living on a different planet? Like you feel like the Kimmy Schmidt like bunker person, like coming outta the bunker. You know, so like, I think it takes a lot of agility and flexibility. So that's again, I think like a huge benefit for people with ADHD, um, and ADD, like we're extremely agile. Um, there's a book that I read and I'm currently reading almost done with that the founder of Interleti recommended. It's called Crossing the Chasm. Um, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers. So it's sort of like how to talk about emerging technologies in a way that's not overly salesy, but still makes sense. It's like a very hard thing to do, especially with, with the page changing every day. Like you said, that's a really good way to put it.

Love your pop references with Kimmy Schmidt. Do you have to do that for your writing or that just comes naturally to you?

I think, I think it's just like, I don't know. I think that's one of the things I'm like good at doing is like associating certain technical ideas to like Pop culture references so they make sense, like Frogger, you know? I think it's just like a lot of stuff flying around in my head at all times sometimes makes its way out. Like I haven't watched Kimmy Schmidt in like 3 or 4 years. I don't know why that would appear right now, but it did.

And I'm finding like when I draw pop references and, and like suddenly I'm like, as if my parents were referencing MASH or like some, like I'll just say something that I think is current and it's like definitely 20 years old.

Yeah.

And I get the boomer, boomer alert come GIF pop up in the Discord. So embarrassing.

I said something about SpongeBob in like a work meeting today and I was like, why did I say

that? I didn't know SpongeBob was off limits.

I don't know if he's off limits, but I don't know. Like, it was like I got blank looks from everybody, so I didn't know if any, either people like didn't get it or like if I was just like, I don't know. But like SpongeBob's definitely not off limits, but the amount of rent-free space that SpongeBob takes up in my mind is a little bit much sometimes.

I've actually never seen SpongeBob. I don't know why. I think it's because I grew up without cable. But I saw SpongeBob on Broadway, and it was incredible. But I didn't get any of the references. The audience would cheer and laugh whenever things happened, and I didn't understand why because I didn't watch SpongeBob.

I'm trying to imagine going from never watching SpongeBob to seeing SpongeBob on Broadway, which I didn't even know was a thing.

Oh, it was incredible. And all the music is written written by like Flaming Lips and like other bands and stuff like in that kind of area.

That's awesome.

Okay. So Liv, for our last project here, for the next, for the, the, the final 8 minutes of the podcast, I wanted to, I don't know what it's called, troubleshoot. I wanted to brainstorm. I wanted to think about how can, how can we get treasuries, communities, NFTs, protocols to deposit their treasury on a pool together and delegate it to their people or other things? Let's solve it right now.

Good question. Because like, when I think about the multi-delegator tool, I'm like, this is great. Like, who wouldn't? Like, this is a perfect solution for so many DAOs. But like, I haven't, I don't know if I'm like explaining it wrong, but like in the DAOs I've approached, it hasn't, like, I don't know, they seem hesitant. I think DAOs are just hesitant over the security of their treasury. So I don't know that, that, that's hard. That's a really hard— what are your thoughts?

Do you have any ideas?

Yeah. So yeah, I'm all about removing friction. So I'm like, well, let's see, the stables are sitting, I, I'm gonna guess in a Gnosis Safe, a multisig wallet. It's sitting in Gnosis Safe. Is there a way that we can get Multi-Delegator Tool like into Gnosis as like an app? Like they have these Gnosis Safe apps. So I'm just trying to think about like, what's the path of least resistance? What's the easiest way to get people to do it? One of the ideas I'm actually talking with Guild.xyz tomorrow, but Guild is really great because you can create Discord roles based on like token gating. So you can look up, you know, how many PTA-USDC do they have in their wallet and do they have a Pooly in their wallet and do they have a Zaddy in their wallet? And if they do, Then we, I would love a button that would allow you to delegate to whatever Discord role that you just created through token gating. And you can see, you can see the treasury amount that's available to delegate and then like through the guild dashboard. So I'm thinking of integrations like that maybe that make it easier. But yeah, you're right. Moving USDC anywhere right now, people, I think people are shook. They're wildly shook.

Shook is a great— they're shooketh. Yeah, I think so too. I think there's just a lot of like fear and like, especially for DAOs and projects that have a treasury that's like not just their money, they're not just putting themselves at risk, they're putting their whole organization at risk. So, it's like a huge scary thing. So, I think potentially it would either have to do with like a tool that integrates into Gnosis, which is like, You know, a great idea. I think that's awesome. Or something with Guild. Guild is also amazing. Or just encouraging people to do smaller amounts of their treasury, you know, like if they have a certain amount of money in their treasury, letting them know that they can do, you know, if they do, if they delegate like $10,000 a month, the person who's delegated to will get like, you know, on average, I don't know, $35, $40 or something. I don't, it, I guess I would not, I don't know. It's hard to say because I guess for the delegator tool, you want it to be the most amount with the most people delegated to.

Yeah. Or, or maybe I'm like, we're going about it the wrong way and it, maybe it's like people, like every individual puts in a small, puts in a small amount and delegates it to their treasury and then their treasury could win prizes or something. Like, I, I don't know. I, yeah, there, I feel like there's something. Like there's always, when everyone's zigging, what's the zag? Like what's the, what's that, what's that like path of least resistance judo throw that uses the weight of the opponent or whatever? But yeah, I'm just trying to, I didn't realize that business development was a skill of mine. I love it. I just call it schmoozing. I love like talking to people and asking questions and then trying to find win-wins. And that's what I'm going to keep doing. But, but I will say, you know, it's, uh, It's, uh, it's hard to get people, maybe that's the other thing. It's just hard to get people to act, you know, and it's gonna take 3 months from start to finish in a conversation. And I just need to be okay with that. And, and I also need to be okay with all the people changing, 'cause it's 3 months from now and everybody left and more people are there that are different. I don't know.

Exactly. Yeah. Like I said, like 4 or 5 months in crypto time is like 10 years in regular time.

But also, do we age like that too?

Oh God, probably the amount of time I spent on like screens.

I need your makeup tips. I need your makeup blog.

Hydrate, hydrate your skin.

Oh, good tip. Good tip. Okay.

That's the best tip. Drink water.

That's right. Okay, so I lied. I want, I have one more question and this is smart investors' favorite question, which is, Liv, what do you like right now? Like what are you really excited about? What do you think the future is? What, where should we put our ETH that we're not giving to Mochi for failing at our commitments. Also, this is not, not financial advice, but just asking Liv, what, what?

Never financial advice. Not from me. That will be advice that you regret taking. Just, uh, I'm just kidding, kind of. But like, don't, yeah, no financial advice here. But there's so, like, for me, the stuff that excites me is not like financially related. I guess sometimes it could be, but it's more like ideas and movements. And I think like Yeah. You know, this week I talked to, to Margot Páez, who's, who's an environmentalist slash activist who writes a lot about Bitcoin. And her sort of ideas about future societies, I guess, like not necessarily on Bitcoin, but like on, in crypto in general, like how crypto creates a way for us to create our own governance systems, our own nation states, I guess you could say, but like just their own like little societies and how that can change in the future. Like with DAOs, like cabin creator cabins, like, you know, that are like actually they have physical land and like space that you can go to and contribute to and you can work there and live there. And, you know, they have, I don't know if you knew this, but they minted a cow as an NFT, like the first live animal. And like, You could like buy a fraction of the cow and like, you know, this is like a really like outdoorsy DAO. So you could either like buy all 4 shares of the, the cow and keep it, or you could buy 1 share and get a certain amount of beef at the end of a certain period of time. But yeah, stuff like that. Like that's like a one really like weird example, but like how is this going to impact the future in terms of like, how is this going to, I think like on a, Much wider scale. We're moving more towards like individual, we're moving past individualism into more like community-based initiatives. And I think how can crypto and blockchain technology enable movements and, you know, people working together. But in terms of like specific stuff like RadarDAO, like I said, I'm obsessed. Like everything they're doing right now is, is so dope. They're working and we're working together on like our first big research, um, project on, um, a future in sync. So we had 10 different, um, uh, like signals that had a lot of activity and we all voted on which one we liked the most. Some of them were like the future, a future of feeling where it was like, oh, like right now a lot of people are reacting to 2 or 3 years of being inside and, you know, not having a lot of Stimuli, and a lot of people want to feel anything. And that like kind of leads to stuff like trash art or like a resurgence of punk music or, you know, music NFTs, stuff like that. Or, you know, a future where our data is secure. So that could be stuff like disco. How can we regain sovereignty over our data in a way that's not like extremist, like burying gold bars in your backyard kind of stuff? So I think Radar is like a really awesome place to just hang in if you wanna get a feel for what's moving forward in the future. And as well as Forefront. Forefront is great. They have a ton of like really awesome creator initiatives where they fund artists to create work and have little workshops and stuff in their Discord. And then I like, in terms of NFTs, Tezos is like, Killing it right now. They, they're just like so much fun to like just collect art that you like because it's like not extremely expensive. There's so many people like pushing the boundaries in, in Tezos in terms of like what NFTs can do and what they can be. And yeah, I'm bullish on books as always. So if anyone wants any book suggestions, I'm your person.

Okay. Yeah. Give me what, what, give me 2 books. And do you read paper or do you do audiobooks? What do you do?

So I read paper books. I read on an e-reader and I listen to audiobooks, so it depends. I listen to a lot of nonfiction books as an audiobook, so it's more like listening to a podcast to me. Like, you know, when I'm like driving or doing the dishes or whatever. I'm just reading, I'm almost finished with Where the Crawdads Sing, which is a fiction novel, and it's so, so good. Just like chef's kiss. So good. I just finished Nonfiction-wise, I just finished Digital Body Language, which is a book about— sounds boring, but it's really interesting. It's a book about how to communicate online in a way that is mindful of other people's feelings and also gets stuff done. Because we relied on body language, physical body language, and tone and voice and everything for so long that things like punctuation and Frequency and, you know, is it an email or a text or a Discord message? You know, all that stuff like has meaning. So that's a great book too. So Digital Body Language. And then what I mentioned before, um, Crossing the Chasm, which is like the marketing for new technologies book.

Yeah, I grabbed that on audiobook with one of my credits as soon as you said it. Uh, Body Language, I'll also do that. That's great. Cool. Do you read science fiction, Liv?

I do sometimes. And like, I have a few on my list that have been like, someone at Interlay is like a huge into like science fiction from the '70s and '80s that like has like early cypherpunk stuff in it. And I really wanna read that stuff, but

yeah. Like Neuromancer or Snow Crash.

Yes. Both of those. Both of those are on my list.

Yeah. Ender's Game is really good, but, um, I'm really into Three-Body Problem trilogy. Uh, which is Chinese science fiction. Cixin Liu is so good. And there's also a 4th fan fiction book called The Redemption of Time that, uh, is now canon. Like it's the, the fan fiction was so good. It's now part of, now it's a, a quadlogy or something. And then, um, and then I love Murakami, Haruki Murakami. I just, so all of those books and then, uh, Klara and the Sun is another one. Uh, sorry, this is not my podcast. This is your podcast, but you make, uh, I just wanna participate in like Oh, that's good. That's

good.

Yeah.

Anyway, Clara and the Sun. I'm like currently reading it. My dad was like, you need to read this. He like sent me a copy of it. He's like, it's about— and I'm like, who, who are you, Tony? You've retired and now I don't know who you are. Um, but it's really, really, really good. It's beautiful.

It's beautiful. Yes. It beautiful is like the word. Yeah. So good. Okay. Well, Liv, thank you so much for your time on the Pool Together Community Podcast. It's been a pleasure having you. I think you have a few future in podcasting as well. So now dual career of writing and podcasting. Uh, I look forward to being a guest on your show in the future. Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you so much. I had a lot of fun.

Thanks for listening to the PoolTogether Community Podcast. You can visit pooltogether.com to deposit, and we'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. So visit the PoolTogether Discord and let us know.