Memes are Dead, Long Live the Memes | Nick Tomaino

The narrative was this is open for anyone. Anyone can, you know, make money, fuck the VCs, you know, whatever. But it turns out that was all a lie. There maybe weren't VCs taking advantage of people, but there were these middlemen that were taking advantage of people, right? And so I'm just very skeptical whenever I see the herd going in one direction. Thinking about like human dynamics more and less about like tech is, I would say, underrated if you're like, if you're investing or trying to make money in crypto. All right, everyone.

Welcome back to Empire. We've got Nick Tomaino joining the show again. Nick was, I think, on the show last year. He started One Confirmation. Nick, I also remember you were running one of the good events, Token Confirmation.

Token Summit.

Token Summit. I remember back in the day.

Yeah, that was early 2017.

Yeah, good event. I remember. But yeah, anyway, started One Confirmation, one of the best funds in the industry, and is perpetually impresses me by how often he is able to stay grounded and take the other side of things and not get swept up in the, in the mania of things. And I think it's been on the other side. I think we'll talk a lot about like just being on the other side of being very not getting caught up in a lot of the meme stuff that's been happening recently. So anyways, Nick, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. Good to see you.

Why don't we just start there? So we're recording this February 19th on Wednesday. And over the past weekend, you just saw this like Malay and Libra and meme coin stuff. And it really feels like to me, this is the tipping point for the industry realizing that, okay, maybe some of these, like this meme stuff, maybe is not as healthy as we originally thought it was. I'd love to just get your 10,000-foot view on what's happening with like memes and Solana and just the whole debacle that is unfolding before our eyes?

Yeah, well, I mean, I would say the, the open ethos of like crypto is both a gift and a curse. And it's like, it's a gift. It's the reason that crypto is what it is today is because like Bitcoin was open source and anyone could understand it. Anyone could copy it and spread it. Anyone can participate. Like, the open ethos is great, but the open ethos also, I would say, enables, um, you know, grifters, scammers, shillers, whatever, however you want to describe that. And we've seen time and time again how that can go wrong, um, in, in ways that really hurt retail, um, And that's really what I care about. Like when I, when I started in crypto, I was like 25 years old. I didn't have any money to my name and I just wanted to make a quick buck. And so I understand that's, that's like the journey that most people in crypto have. And I don't like look down on that at all. So, but when I call out some of the like the meme coin shit, it's more from the perspective of like someone that's speaking to like my 25-year-old self. Like you want to be long-term greedy rather than short-term greedy. And so when you see these kind of manias, you, you can kind of feel that it's, it's, it's too much short-term greed. And, um, and I think that's kind of what I would describe the, you know, the, the pump.fun shit that we've seen on Solana, right? Which was kind of, um, the, the narrative was this is, um, like you know, open for anyone. Anyone can, you know, make money. Fuck the VCs, you know, whatever. But it turns out that was all a lie, right? Like, these things were, um, you know, there maybe weren't VCs taking advantage of people, but there were these middlemen that were taking advantage of people, right? And so I'm just very skeptical whenever I see the herd going, uh, in one direction. And I think, I think that thinking about like human dynamics more and less about like tech is, I would say, underrated if you're like, if you're investing or trying to make money in crypto.

Hmm. All right. So let me try to break this whole meme coin and Solana thing down into— I think there's 3 buckets that people are kind of conflating and kind of combining these 3 buckets together. So there's this question of like, is it ethically okay? To do what's happening with, you know, is this all ethically okay? Then there's, is this sustainable, right? Like, is this going to come crashing down and this is some big bubble? And then there's the like, what's the impact on Solana? And is, you know, there's a lot of talk like, is Solana going to overtake Ethereum? It's like, what is the impact on Solana of this? So maybe viewed through those lenses, like ethically, sustainably, and then the impact on Solana, I'd love to hear you break break down your thoughts?

Um, ethically, I mean, are meme coins okay? Of course. Like, Bitcoin is the OG meme coin, um, and like, meme coins are not going away at all. Like, I'm bullish on meme coins long term. Um, is the, the way that we're learning that these pumped-up fund meme coins kind of got basically played retail and grifted retail on, like, to me, no, that's like not honorable. And I think there is this— I think there is a lack of honor in crypto right now that is troubling. I would say like there's a lot of chasing and I get the chasing again. It's like people want more money, they want more attention. But in the, in the short term. But I think like my interest is like retail. And if we want crypto to win like this stuff, maybe it's short-term good for some people who are chasing it, but it like, it hurts way more people than it helps. And that's bad for the space, I think. And so, I mean, Ethically, like the pump fund shit, again, I don't really care about ethics. I'm not making like an ethical or a moral argument, really. I'm more saying like this stuff is bad for crypto and I think crypto is good for the world. I want to bring crypto to more people. So that's what I care about.

How do you grapple with this idea that you're long-term bullish meme coins, but short-term you think it's really bad for the industry?

No, specifically the pump fun, um, this like insider game that we're now learning about, right, where there's, um, there's sniping, there's lining up influencers to pump it, there's paying influencers, and then just when you get to a certain level everyone dumps, right? Like that, um, that type of just soulless greed, I would call it, is, um But how do you prevent?

Yeah, how do you prevent against that if you do? How do you basically maintain an open permissionless system and keep, uh, but while preventing against this?

You know, I'm not saying prevent against it. Like, I, I don't think, um, I'm saying educate people, um, make people, help people level up, right? Like, I think, um, and I, I used to bet on sports, right? I think betting on sports is really dumb. You're you're mostly gonna lose, but it is like, it is skin in the game. You are risking something and either winning or losing based on objective truth, right? So the next level I would say is something like meme coins. And you know, where maybe it's a little better, more positive sum than sports betting. You have more control of it because you actually, you are part of the community, own the coin, can, you know, do something to make it more valuable. But the, like, the pump fun, you know, fake, um, fair launch stuff is mostly bad, right? Um, and is most— but, but people can still learn from that. So the hope is, like, even though this, uh, a lot of people lost from it, like, there's some that might really win long term if they can, you know, get smarter and level up. And then believe in something more than just chasing a quick buck, right? That's— that is the next level. So it's like sports betting is maybe level 1, meme coin chasing is level 2, then believing in something more, taking a long-term view and getting like real skin in the game and something you believe. That was my journey, by the way. Like, um, and that is, I think, a journey that can lead to, um, a lot of, uh, good stuff. So that, that's what I try to evangelize.

Yeah, I, I'm generally of the belief that this stuff actually ends up self-correcting fairly quickly. Like, you know, who, who's, who in their right mind is going to start buying like new meme coin launches right now? These things are like straight down. So I'm generally of the belief that these things self-correct. What do you think of, um, maybe that third pane of glass that I was kind of looking through to, to talk about this is like ethically, sustainably, and then the last is maybe like the impact on Solana. And you talk about like leaders and Vitalik and stuff. I'm curious how you think that Solana and the leadership of Solana could have handled this better or differently, or maybe they're handling it just how they should handle it.

Mm-hmm. Look, I'm not a member of Solana, like the Solana community. I would say it's always felt to me like this kind of Silicon Valley, uh, company coin and this, like, the culture that really, um, kind of respects existing institutions and kind of chases Silicon Valley prestige. And, um, so I, I don't— I, I mean, I think, look, there could be— I'm not going to write off Solana. Like, there could be some interesting projects that come from Solana, but like FTX and now this, right? We're both— those are the right now the legacies of Solana. So let's see, you know, there's, there's going to— there's new narratives that, you know, the Solana community will shill like dPIN or whatever else. And I don't know, from an investment perspective, like I invest in products that I get excited about from a user perspective. And there's not one product that has come out of Solana yet that has been kind of a new product that I've been excited about from a user perspective. So, so I hope that Solana levels up and, and we see some real interesting products that are, that are net new for the space. But that hasn't happened yet. And what, and I think, you know, what may be more likely is there will be the Solana community as a culture chases shiny objects. That's like what Solana people do. And there'll probably be another shiny object that they jump to that maybe, you know, Aptos or Sui or whatever, you know, whatever shiny L1 comes next.

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Not at all. No, no, I never— why would you— why would you say that?

I thought you were implying that other L1s like Solana, Sui, Aptos are just shiny.

Cosmos, the Cosmos ecosystem. I'm a big believer in app chains long term. Okay. Like, I think every quality application developer will want the control and the economics of having their own chain. And so the two best ecosystems for that right now, I would say, are Cosmos and Ethereum. Cosmos, that was the whole— the vision of Cosmos is kind of— is an appchain vision, kind of sovereign chain. Every, you know, every developer would want self-sovereignty. And so I, you know, we've invested in many projects in that ecosystem. And I would say that that's probably quite contrarian right now, but I'm very bullish on like the Cosmos ecosystem and kind of app chains in general. And then Ethereum is also kind of well suited for app chains with the kind of L2s and L3s. So I think the reality is like mid developers are going to go to a chain like Solana and where there's users right now and there's interest, um, for the short term. But like long term, uh, as a developer, why would you want to bring, uh, that's really— as a developer that's really bringing like something net new to the space and not like zero-sum, why would you want to, um, contribute value to an existing chain that way, um, such that, like, you know, when the, when the Trump coin, uh, happened, there were no other— like, there were only a few apps on the chain that worked during that time. And it's like, there's scalability problems, and there's more importantly, like, control and economic problems if you're an application developer that's on an existing chain. And so I think app chains are just, uh, 100% the future.

Got it.

Do you—

is there anything that would get you to change your mind about Solana, or do you think it's a cultural problem that will— that just won't change?

What would change my mind is if there are interesting products that are net new and to the space and bringing new people in. And you could say, you know, something like Pump.fund, like I'm not— that brought new people in. I don't think it was kind of net new and really positive sum. So that, like, I would be very excited if, you know, we saw some applications that were really something like Polymarket, you know, in 2024, or, you know, OpenSea in 2021, 2022, or, you know, the MakerDAO, Uniswap, dYdX, and kind of, you know, the early DeFi days. Like, these are applications, or even like, you know, Forecast or Warpcast, um, you know, this year. Like, these, these are, um, you know, applications that I think are kind of net new for the space and bringing new people in. And, um, I don't think we've seen that from Solana yet. But again, I'm not, I'm not writing it off. I just, uh, I, I think there's been— it's skewed far too much towards just hype.

Do you know Alliance DAO? Like Imran Chowdhury? Yeah. So I just left this Alliance event and one of the founders there, he said, look, I'm— I've got everything nailed down. I've got my product. I'm just debating, should I build it in Solana or build it on Base? He's like, I figured that out. And actually, the thing that came into my head there was one of your tweets, and I'll read it. It says, VCs telling founders what chain to build on is peak loser energy. The startup will only really work if there's founder belief. The role of an early-stage VC is to instill belief, not project bag bias. How do you think about that from— yeah, can you just tell me more about that and how you think about it?

I think founders should build on whatever chain they, they, they vibe with, like, they, that they believe in and they understand, you know, the culture. I don't, um, and I think most will ultimately, like, the good ones will ultimately again, like, probably built, you know, launched their own app chain. So, yeah, um, I don't— as I said, like, I don't— I'm always kind of— I care more about the application, right? Like, at this point, um, 2025, the past 15 years in crypto have been about two things: infrastructure and, and just money, right? Like, all the founders and the investors that have done really well, they've been either doing the infrastructure stuff or the money stuff, right? Um, and I think we're at a point where it's time for applications. We need kind of consumer applications. Um, that's like what we're focused on for the next 10 years is consumer applications kind of at the intersection of culture and crypto. And I don't— I think the question of like what chain should I build on is too inward.

It's like not the right question.

Yeah, I guess thinking about like crypto and so much of crypto, even like, and this, you know, some, something that's frustrating to me is like there's a, there's a whole bunch of venture capital money that is just investing in like the next L1 or the just like very inward shit that is not really net new and pushing the space forward. But maybe it's like getting liquidity from one chain to this new chain or something like that, right? So I, I think, um, you know, the best founders just want to build like useful applications for, for people and make crypto more useful for people. And, um, you know, it doesn't really matter. Like, again, even though I, I'm not, uh, that interested in Solana, like, if, if a great founder wanted to build something on Solana That would be cool with me. And I would love to invest in a product that resonated with me.

How do you grapple with this idea of like, so, okay, so I love the mindset. It's like we need the applications. I think everyone listening to this is probably like, listen, being like, yeah, Nick, like kind of nodding their head. Like, I agree with that. However, this is like, I mean, what are we looking at right now? Like, I think Monad launched their testnet today. It was like Movement launched, Barachain launched, MegaETH launched, Abstract launched. These things are all launching like ridiculous, like billions of dollars valuations. Do you think that the market eventually just self-corrects? Or like you as a venture capitalist, like you have to provide returns to your LPs. So that is where the returns have been in the industry. Or maybe I'm wrong about that.

Look, I mean, I think our returns have been from applications like OpenSea and like Bridge and like Um, you know, a bunch, uh, SuperRare and dYdX and a bunch of others.

Polymarket.

So Polymarket, uh, no returns yet, but, uh, no, no DPI, but on paper. Yeah. Um, so I, I think we have among, if not the top performance in the industry, and not doing the, um, for the most part. And again, I'm not also not like religious against big, uh, you know, like token rounds if it's something that's net positive for the space. But a lot of these, I would say, are not. They're more a product of there's too much venture capital in the, in the space. And a lot of the LPs of these big funds that have raised billion-dollar funds, part of the, the appeal of crypto to these LPs is the quick liquidity. That's something that you don't get in traditional venture, right? So they're kind of investing in these big funds because they want this token liquidity in like a couple of years. And I, it's not, I don't think that's generating massive returns, right? Like it's, and most importantly, it's bad for retail because if you look at the history, like the past, call it 5 years of this, retail investors buying into this, you know, the next L1 at a multibillion-dollar valuation have on average lost. Right. So it's honestly a similar game to the meme coin shit on Pump.fund, just for like prestige VCs rather than, you know, like the average guy. So, and I don't think like I mean, look, we're in a blessed position because like for me, I already had, you know, like a lot of success even before I started One Confirmation. Like I, you know, I'm a big believer in Bitcoin. I've never sold any Bitcoin. Like I've been blessed because I haven't— I've been early and I haven't had to chase anything at all. I haven't had to chase big funds. I haven't had to chase narratives. And so I've been able to be very long-term and more principled. And I think my LPs are very happy about that. It's also like a position of privilege. I get that there's a lot of other people out there that maybe don't have that. So it's just an approach that's done well for us. And I think it's an approach that can do more. Well for a lot of others as well. And I— but most importantly, like, again, for your listeners, like, I think there's a lot of retail people that, you know, want to make money from crypto. And I think these big VC chains are net losers. And I don't think jumping in is a winning proposition on average.

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I hate the term cycle, like this, this cycle. Like, I think the first thing is, um, you're not a 4-year cycle believer? Um, no, this cycle is like something I see a lot of people like people say, um, and it's more of a trading mentality, right? Which I think, um, I think the first thing you should do is, um, take a long-term view on crypto. Like, do you believe that the internet is going to be more important or less important in 10 years? If you believe more, the other question you should ask is, do you think that people are going to trust government more or less in 10 years? I think most 25-year-olds would say more and less to those questions. Right. And so if you believe that, buy some Bitcoin, buy some ETH, and maybe, you know, maybe buy a little bit of a few others if you want to take a little more risk. Right. I think get your exposure that way. Don't, don't come in with a trading mentality and then start using products.

Right?

Like, I think just being a user of products is vastly underrated. And so believe in something, get some, you know, skin in the game and in like a long-term basket and then start using products and being curious. And like, I think if you— a problem that a lot of people, including, you know, myself at 25, had is like, you just listen to narratives. A narrative sounds good. And so then you chase the narrative. And there's so many narratives in crypto that, that sound good. But how do you— how can you basically separate a bullshit narrative that just sounds good from something real? I think that's like a question that's important to ask. And to me, the answer is, is there a product that you believe in? If you're an actual user of the product and the product is useful to you, then I think that's something to get more exposure and maybe double down on, maybe go all in on. But like, you got to get out of a mindset of just chasing narratives and have, you know, a long-term mindset, use products and be curious. Those are the 3 things.

Yeah. All right. Let's pivot to actually 2. We can call them narratives or products or use cases or whatever that I wanted to talk about. One is kind of this intersection of actually memes, NFTs, creativity, media. It's something I think a lot just as someone who runs a media company. But actually, before we do that, there's another one I saw you tweet. Polymarket was the first stablecoin-native consumer app to break out. My bet is we'll see many more soon. So why don't we talk about just like consumer apps and stablecoins and this kind of— yeah, maybe take us into that conversation.

Yeah, I mean, I think stablecoins are are one of the biggest things happening this year. Again, for new people, you know, understand what's going on in stablecoins. There's probably going to be a lot of interesting new opportunities in stablecoins. I think at a high level, you know, stablecoins have always been an interesting area, starting with, you know, MakerDAO. That was one of our first investments as a fund. And, you know, MakerDAO and DAI is kind of this decentralized collateralized on-chain stablecoin. and the— what's happening now in 2025 with stablecoins is quite interesting because the Trump administration has made it a priority, um, to get clear legislation with stablecoins. And I actually think the, um, maybe not just the Trump administration, maybe even the ruling class broadly, because before FTX collapsed, they were actually behind the scenes working on a stablecoin. and they were also working closely on stablecoin legislation. So it's possible that both sides see stablecoins as really important to the future of the US economy. The macro backdrop, and I encourage people, I'm sure a lot of your listeners know Balaji, who's a close friend, has written a lot of good stuff about this. And I talk to him all the time about this stuff. He's probably my smartest friend on kind of global macro stuff. And the backdrop for the US right now is China and Japan are the two largest holders of US Treasuries. Selling US Treasuries is how the government pays off its debt and funds operations, right? And both China and Japan are dumping Treasuries and not buying Treasuries anymore. There's a bunch of BRICS countries as well that are getting away from the dollar. And so, you know, you have countries around the world, the governments are getting away from the dollar, getting away from US Treasuries. Stablecoins are a way for the US government to distribute the dollar to net new users around the world without the government of those countries even being involved. And that's really what's happening with stablecoin growth right now. Right. The total market cap of stablecoins is about $225 billion. It's still quite small. And if you both look at kind of the just the total, the global macro landscape, as well as even within crypto market caps. But it's growing. It's at an all-time high right now and it's growing. And I think The interesting thing about that is the US dollar is about 99.9% of stablecoins right now. Of course, stablecoins can be more than US dollar. So one interesting area is like, you know, might there be a stablecoin that pegs to a basket of goods, for example, rather than just the US dollar or other—

Yeah, like a CPI stable or something like that.

And those ideas have been around for a while. Nothing has really stuck there yet. But if I was a country that wanted to compete with the US, that would be on my radar, right? But I think stablecoins generally for the US, they distribute dollars to new people around the world and they create net new buyers of treasuries, right? Tether, Sure, you saw the headlines about Tether in January. It's like they did, I think it was $14 billion in net profit in 2024. And they're one of the top 20 largest buyers of US Treasuries now, Tether is. And I think the US government knows all this. They want to put legislation in place so that we start seeing even more stablecoins. Like I think we'll probably see some large US banks launch their own dollar-denominated stablecoins. I wouldn't be surprised if X has a stablecoin.

I agree with that. Actually, that was one of my big predictions for this year is that you'll see fintechs and tech companies and banks issue their own stablecoins. And I think actually Twitter or X now, like US, they should have, you know, X US or USDX. Yeah. USDX is a great, great ticker. It's a great—

Yeah, no. And I think there's a business model there. I think, you know, we We were very early involved in Bridge, which was acquired by Stripe last month. And they— Bridge does two things. And this is something that Zach has been— the founder of Bridge has been evangelizing for a while now. You know, one of the core products is just provide kind of the infrastructure for like businesses to use stablecoins underneath the hood. To move money faster and cheaper, right? So like SpaceX, their Starlink product that they sell to Nigeria consumers, they take Nigerian currency and then Bridge on the backend for them will sell that Nigerian currency for like USDT and then move USDT to USD. And so the company wants dollars, not Nigerian currency, right? So that's like the core kind of infrastructure product. But their other product is kind of providing the infrastructure for anyone to launch their own stablecoin. And that's not as, that product doesn't have as much traction yet, but I think it will. There will be opposition this year. Um, so yeah, there's— so back to that long-winded way of the, the initial tweet is like, uh, Polymarket, you know, a lot of people say, oh, prediction markets have been around for a while. Um, like, you know, what, why did it need crypto? Well, I think it needed crypto because, um, the— for especially for, uh, you know, for political markets, because until, um, this past year, political markets were illegal in the US. And, um, there was— before stablecoins on, you know, on, on Ethereum, there was no, um, easy way for like a product to get liquidity from the rest of the world. And the reason why, uh, Polymarket had over $2 billion in volume, um, last year is because they used, um, you know, USDC, um, on Polygon. So So that— and that was really the first. And there's a lot of net new users of crypto that came in through Polymarket. Right. So it was one of the first products that, like, didn't require first, like, speculation on Bitcoin or Solana or whatever. And so I think we're going to see more of those.

Do you have a sense of what— of what some of these consumer apps could be? Are they consumer apps or are they B2B, like SaaS platforms built on stablecoins? Like any idea of like I don't know, just sense of what you're excited about there.

I think, well, I'm mostly excited about consumer more so than B2B, I would say. And like, you know, the reason I'm an investor is, you know, like I don't have a concrete vision of like, you know, what should exist, but I do have a pretty good sense of like, the, the areas and the founders that are, you know, that can build them, right? So I'm very much interested in like bleeding-edge crypto products. Um, like decentralized social, for example, is I think an area that's, that's very ripe, um, for, for something to, to really break out. Um, and I think kind of the combination of like social feeds, um, that allow you to do stuff on chain, you know, that, that's something I'm really excited about. So I think like, you know, NFTs, for example, like, I think NFTs will come back. I think what's likely to bring them back is not the last generation of like, where it was all about making— it was, you know, 99% about making money, like 1% about supporting the creator. When you have like in-feed easy to use, you know, NFT mints, then it becomes like maybe 80% about supporting the creator, still 20% about money. So, and I think like, you know, stablecoins are really good for that type of thing, right? Where if you could, if it was easy to just get a stablecoin in a crypto wallet and then you can mint, you know, an NFT from a creator you like for a dollar, that, that type of thing, I think is quite interesting.

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I mean, like, I— that was something when I started in 2017, I launched One Confirmation. It was one of the first venture funds. Crypto venture funds. Might have been the first. And, um, at the time, ICOs were going crazy.

Yeah.

Um, and, um, and one, one investor asked me, um, so, uh, what ICOs have you invested in? And ICOs were going crazy. It looked like everyone was making money from ICOs, right? And, and I said, uh, not one. Uh, like my focus is on founders that, uh, are focused on doing something meaningful long-term and not just going for like a quick cash grab. And, um, that, that investor didn't invest. Like, he, he thought, um, he thought it was like a bad sign that, uh, so many people were making money from ICOs and I wasn't. Um, but that's like always the strategy that I've had from the very beginning is like back good founders that are building products that are net positive, pushing the space forward. And I do think tokens make a lot of sense for many products. So I do like tokens, but it's not required. And what I try to do is just be aligned with founders long-term. There's like token, you know, warrant agreements. There's all these like deal, like, deal structures that have become like common in, in the crypto, which I, I, I don't like them. Um, like, I just— what— and, and sometimes I'll do them if it's like what the founder wants to do, but it's like, just, you know, be aligned with the founder and, and believe in the founder, and, and you don't need to restrict the founder to It's like, I very much feel like if you put— if you're trying to put like control on someone, you know, whether it's an employee, whether it's a founder, whether it's a child, like they're not going to do their best. And so you kind of want to just, you know, support, be positive, and let them be free. And so that's kind of how I structure my deals. And I really don't like the token warrant stuff that often comes up.

Yeah. Nick, how do you— so I've now done 50 or 50, somewhere between 50 and 60 angel deals. And what I thought would lead to success with these deals is completely different than what I— what it actually has been. So what I thought when I started doing these angel investments was like, you got to find like this sick product and like a designer who really like knows how to do growth on social and an amazing product builder. And what it really just has come down to is like, do— are they willing to stick with the thing for several years?

Yeah.

And most of the things that have worked where I've like made— most of the things, most, by the way, most of the things have failed. And the reason they failed is because the founder's just given up or quit. And the things that have worked, oftentimes the thing looks completely different than when I first met the founder. They've just stuck with it. They've done layoffs, they've hired, they've done layoffs, they've hired, they've seen many cycles and they just have a very long-term view. How do you suss that out as a, in like your interviews or your, the fundraising process?

Yep. Great question. And yeah, that's certainly true. I would say our kind of, one of our requirements, I would say, from founders is like showing a deep historical knowledge on whatever the area that they're building is. And there's got to be context. There's got to be some understanding. So if they're building in prediction markets, by the way, like Shane is a good example of this from Polymarkets. Like Shane knew everything about Augur. He had a view on like what was good about Augur, what was bad about Augur. What was good about Vale? What was bad about Vale? What was good about Intrade? What was bad about Intrade? And, um, and that type of, um, like, care and understanding of what's come before is, is kind of— I would say the main thing that I look for, um, because there's a lot. And, and that's not to say, by the way, that that's the only way you can make money from, you you know, from investing in that type of founder. I think there's lots of ways to do it, um, but I do think you need to have some strategy that's, that's, you know, something beyond just chasing, just making money, right? And, um, and that is a good way to filter founders that I think are, are more opportunistic, right? It's like kind of the classic, uh, you know, mercenary versus missionary. Like, we, we tend to prefer the the missionary who has some care for what they're building beyond just like a good opportunity. So that's kind of, you know, some of its vibe, some of its gut feel. But specifically, like, I always want to dive deep on whatever the area that they're building, like what's their knowledge of what's been attempted before? Because that's, that's a great thing about crypto too, is like there's, uh, everything's open source. Um, you know, there's a lot of different experiments that are kind of publicly running. There's a lot to learn kind of at all times. So, um, like, you know, and there's a lot to learn from, you know, good things and bad things. I mean, for example, Pump.fun, um, you know, there, there's probably an opportunity for someone to, um, do a version of Pump.fun that, um, is somehow more, uh, pump and dump resistant, right? What exactly that is, I'm not sure, but like, that might be a, you know, and, you know, if there's a founder building that, I would want to— I would want their— some insight that's not just surface level, right, on, you know, what happened at Pump, what was good, what was bad. And you'd be surprised, like, especially in Silicon Valley, there's a lot of founders that are chasing narratives and don't care that much and don't kind of do the real work to understand like the historical context.

Yeah, I completely agree with that, by the way. It's like the two things that are— maybe I kind of look for three things. It's like, what's the co-founder relationship? Because that has also killed a lot of companies that I've invested in. And then the other is like, Will you stick with it for several years? And then the third is like, can you give me like an oh wow insight? Can I walk away from that conversation and be like, wow, this person knows everything about this topic and has actually made me think differently about this.

Yeah. But more than anything, like I think, and it's probably a combination of the things you mentioned, I think it's like care. They've gotta care. Like I think I look back from what, you know, when I started, when I joined Coinbase in 2013 to now, um, there's been so many people that I've seen come and go. And I think the reason I'm still here more than anything is not because, you know, I'm smart or, um, you know, whatever. It's because I care. Like, I genuinely care. And you— it's hard to fake that.

You care about what? You care about like decentralization or like bringing like holding truth to the institutions, or you care about Ethereum, or you care about Bitcoin, or what do you care about?

I care about crypto as a tool to empower people around the world and, and lift people up, basically. Like, I think crypto at its core is human empowerment technology, and I care about bringing that to more people.

Yeah. Do you think Coinbase is a good steward of that mission?

Net. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

What do you think happens with Coinbase? What do you think? I think Coinbase is a phenomenal steward of that. I think, I think Coinbase is one of the best companies in the industry. I really like what Jesse is doing with Base. I think that they're like not the saving grace of Ethereum. I'm a little more bearish and pessimistic on Ethereum or have been in the past. But I think the reason that Ethereum will ultimately work out is not, not because of Base and Jesse, but like, I mean, man, they're doing some good work to move Ethereum forward, I would say.

Um, but by the way, I, I'm by no means like— I, I like— I think Ethereum— I've been very bullish on Ethereum, like, you know, in my post and stuff, because I am, you know, I love Ethereum. I think Ethereum, you know, for crypto to win, Ethereum needs to be strong. But I'm no means a, like, Ethereum, by no means an Ethereum maximalist. And I also think Ethereum, and this is kind of something I think about with founders, it's like there's two things that are important, creativity and competition and competitiveness. Okay. And I think like Ethereum, a critique of Ethereum would be lack of competitiveness. I think Ethereum, there's, there's, we've, we've invested in some founders that were maybe more on the creative side, and a reason it didn't work is because of lack of competitiveness. So I think Ethereum needs to be more competitive. There needs to be more kind of competitive will to win. I think there is it, um, and I think there is and will be, but, um, but that is like a, I would say, a, um, critique that I have on Ethereum. And I think there are other ecosystems that are like hypercompetitive. And Solana would be a good example, right? Like, I think there's like hypercompetitive but really lacks creativity. I mean, what's something creative that's come out of Solana?

Would you— how would you fix Ethereum? How would you make them more competitive? You tell Vitalik to get on Twitter and start like— like, how do you make them more competitive?

Um, well, I don't think we necessarily— no, I mean, it's, it's— and it doesn't— it also doesn't need to come from necessarily Vitalik. Like, um, I think— and I have this conversation with some like big Wall Street investors who like, they, they, they're worried about Ethereum because, um, there's other projects that have these, um, big public figures that are now like going to Washington, DC and meeting with everyone and They're company coins, right? But a lot of investors are used to investing in companies. And so they see that what looks like, you know, these company CEOs that are leading a certain way and they are concerned because Ethereum doesn't have that. I don't think Ethereum needs that. I think why Ethereum wins long term is because of social scalability and Nick Szabo Wrote an awesome essay on this in, I think, 2017. Have you read it?

I vaguely remember it being— was it about Facebook and why either— I think it was Bitcoin will scale.

It mentions Facebook, but I mean, the basic idea was social scalability. It's like an institution—

decentralized things can scale more than centralized things.

Yeah, it's an institution's ability to have people have skin in the game, basically, and benefit from the success of the institution. And like, and yes, he uses Bitcoin as an example. It's more socially scalable than like any institution that's come before it, whether it's, you know, any government or payment networks, because there's no person group or even country behind it, right? So it's like, if you think about it, Bitcoin was like the first technology that people in China used, just like people in Russia used, just like people in the US and every country around the world. And it's— decentralization is a big part of social scalability, right? Um, and so if, if you're a— you— if you're perceived as like a US company coin, is that socially scalable to the globe? What do you think?

If you— no, no, no, no, no, you're not. No.

Yeah. So, so I think Ethereum, you know, like, people in the US are worried that, like, oh, Ethereum's not going to be in the strategic reserve or something because they're not in— no one's in, in DC lobbying. Um, and, um, I think, I think Ethereum will be, you know, if there's a strategic reserve ETH will be in it because other than Bitcoin, it's the only truly decentralized currency that both is censorship-resistant and decentralized from an ownership perspective. And actually not having like a figurehead that's dictating or loudly competing is actually a positive for that. So I think that was a long-winded way of addressing maybe your initial question was, uh, how do we get Ethereum more competitive? I think it's just— I think it will happen naturally, um, and I think— but I think, you know, talking about it, um, and maybe pushing the competitive side more could help.

Yeah. Um, what's, uh— do you know Nick Szabo? Did you ever meet Nick?

Yeah, I met him, um, in— only once. I don't know him well, but he was actually raising money for a, uh, He was going to build a, like, decentralized stock exchange product, um, on, on Ethereum, actually, like Uniswap or something. Well, he was more focused on real-world assets, so like stocks.

Yeah. Um, all right, let's shift gears a little bit.

Um, you—

let's talk about NFTs and like memes and media and stuff like that. So I've heard you talk a few times about I think it's kind of the intersection of— I think you guys did the, the Degen investment, and I've heard you talk about like the intersection of memes and media. Um, then I saw you guys just acquired the Mebits IP with Surge. Yeah. Um, I think you guys own the largest institutional NFT vehicle today. Um, I just love to get your view on like, there's this like interesting thing happening at the intersection. It's like NFTs coming back and memes and like new age media and on-chain creativity. And it's like, I don't really know how to grapple with it or make sense of it, but I'm curious if you have a strong thesis around this right now.

I think my, my love for NFTs is because I think like NFTs bring more creativity to the world. It's like NFTs fundamentally are a business model for creators, right, that didn't exist before. And, um, and so I think, you know, I, I, that's what NFTs are about. And a lot of people I've seen compare like the meme coin stuff that's happening on Pump to, um, to NFTs, which to me is, um, you know, there's similarities, right? Because with NFTs, because of the open ethos, there was a lot of garbage too, but there was also a lot of creativity, right? Like NFTs produced, you know, CryptoPunks and Beeple and Art Blocks and XCOPY and Daniel Allen and like a lot, you know, much, much more. Those are just some of the bigger ones. There's like, this is like, these are real creative people that are like here to stay and probably only gonna get bigger. So that's what I love about NFTs. And I think like, I think as the UX, going back to like social feeds and UX, I think it's like the first, the V1 of NFTs was still mostly speculation and like there was a lot of good creativity there as well, but like I think as UX improves, we'll get back to supporting creativity and I think, My belief in NFTs as an asset class, like why we have a vehicle, is that the thesis is very simple. Like, just like traditional rich people collect traditional art and believe in traditional art as a store of value, so will crypto rich people with crypto art. And so I think—

What do you think they buy?

The things that I— named, right? CryptoPunks, yeah, Beeple, uh, XCOPY, um, you know, many more. Those, those are some of the top ones. Um, super rare one-of-ones, I, I, you know, OG super rare one-of-ones, um, like true art, right? Where, you know, the, like, the, the creator of, um, AI-generated Nude Portrait Number One, do you know that piece? Yeah, that was the Genesis mint on SuperRare by Robbie Barat. And this is a guy who, you know, is a young kid at the time that created this artwork. And he like is the opposite of like a chaser chasing money, right? Like when money came in NFTs, like he left, he was like, fuck this, I don't, you know, I'm not interested in the chasing. Like those are the creatives that I like. and I think that lead to, you know, great, great work that kind of persists over time. So, um, so yeah, that, that's kind of— most crypto-rich people I know still don't have any exposure to crypto art. And I think, um, I think it's just inevitable that as crypto grows, the, you know, some of that goes into kind of high-end, um, yeah, and that, that's just the— that's just like my core thesis on, on, you know, NFTs today. But then there's also a whole, a whole lot of other, um, kind of new use cases that—

yeah, that's, that's the NFTs from the collectibles lens, right? I, I've also heard you— I think it was your tweet, you said the biggest global media brand will come from NFTs.

Yes.

And that, I mean, that piqued my interest as someone who runs a media business. Some would— yeah, just love to hear your thoughts there.

Yeah, I think my, my, um, By media, I meant like, there's different types of media brands, but if you're like, you know, Hello Kitty and Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers, these are some very, like, these are very high grossing, like annual revenue kind of corporate media brands. And I think that, like the idea with Meebits, for example, is that there's really great IP there. Can we take that IP and build, um, you know, an awesome game, uh, with the IP, or, um, a TV show, or, um, you know, um, toys, things like this, right? So I think, I think being community owned and having great IP is like the start. And then if you can combine that with like, you know, content or, um, you know, real world collectibles that, um, that make it, um, make these things more interesting and useful to people. I think that's, that's how you grow.

I know you talk about skin in the game. Can you tell me about just durability of the game? You've been around since 2013, been investing full-time since 2017. I've noticed you don't participate in some of the, like, inner circle games, I would say. Or maybe it's, I'm trying to think of the right word to put on this, but like, you know, you don't, I feel like you skip a lot of the conferences. You're not in, you're not on, you don't do the podcast circuit as much. Like, is that related to just durability? Is that just like, you don't get the value from it? Like, tell me about just durability and this other aspect of like not really being in that circle.

Okay. I think something that many conflate is, being a, uh, like an influencer, a con— a content creator, a media person, and being an investor. I think they're two very different things, um, and that often have very different skill sets. So I'm focused on being, um, like a good investor, and that requires, um, an ability to like think differently than, than the herd. So like, I moved out of San Francisco because You know, we had an office in San Francisco and we were kind of doing the traditional, like, Silicon Valley VC game where, you know, every founder would come pitch us and we were, you know, competing for deals and stuff. And that, that wasn't the most productive, I would say. I've actually found, you know, this is, this is surprising to me, but like, for where we invest at seed stage, right, we write like $1 to $4 million checks in like pre-product or very early product, uh, you know, projects, um, there's actually a negative correlation between how hot a deal is at that stage and the outcome. Um, so like the hottest, most competitive deals were actually like the worst performers, and our best performers were, uh, were actually not that competitive, um, at all. And so the, um, I think you know, to do well as an investor, you really need to get out of kind of the herd mentality. Um, and that's, that's like kind of what works best for, for me and, and for our, our fund. So, um, so that, you know, and that's different than if you're, um, you know, if you're a content creator, um, then you want to get as much attention as possible and real— and really, to do that, you need to be, um, kind of part of the discussion all the time, chasing the current thing and some— and things like that, to some extent, right? And so, um, yeah, that's, that's just— I like investing. I like— I, I'm by nature, I'm like a contrarian. And, um, I think being outside of kind of the the bubbles, whether it's Silicon Valley or whether it's kind of crypto insider bubble or whatever. Like, I still like talking to people, you know, but I don't— it's not like a super important part of like what I do. What I do, what's most important is like that I'm a good partner for founders that we work with and that, you know, I'm also using products and staying at the bleeding edge of, you know, what's happening with new products.

So why did you leave the San Francisco Bay Area?

Um, well, kind of partly related to, you know, playing like the Silicon Valley game. There's very much like a bubble where you get, you know, if you're around people playing that game, they can pull you in more. And, um, I think, you know, we live in kind of a remote area now where we can— it's easier to just kind of be a contrarian. I think that was part of it.

The woods will— and the forest will help you with that. Yeah.

And also just I've got a bunch of kids and I think, you know, the city is not great for kids. So So those were the main reasons.

Nice. Nick Mann, I always enjoy chatting with you.

I appreciate the time.

Thank you. Appreciate it.