Color Commentary x Blu Node — Recapping B25 [EP.70]
Steven Miller Alright. GM GM, hope everybody's having themselves a great day. My name is Steven Miller, and you are tuned into a very special edition of color commentary in collaboration with BlueNode. And, of course, that means I'm joined by my fantastic cohost today, the one, the only BlueToshi. Blue, how are doing?
Blutoshi What's up, everybody? I'm doing good, Steven. I really appreciate it that I, I put a green screen down so you could make it, like, this off peach that, like, this nineteen eighties color that even my daughter would reject for her bedroom. But now I'm feeling good. I'm rested. I slept for twelve or thirteen hours Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night. And during the day, I got to I I had the pleasure of watching eight hours of different girls doing their dance troupes. So you know? And yesterday is just Monday, So I'm ready. Like, everybody's doing their space since Tuesday. They're all doing it at the same time. It's just it's how stuff works. Everyone's motivated. We're back from Vegas. We've digested the things we're gonna digest and and kind of have all these thoughts swirling around our heads. So I can't wait to to dive in with you and everybody else.
Steven Miller I was gonna say we've got no shortage of things to dive into, but I would love to just get a little bit of housekeeping out of the way very first and foremost. That way, you can share any announcements you've got with the with the good people at home, and I will, of course, bring a little attention to what needs to be done on today's stream because this is no ordinary stream, guys. We are going very deep. We're doing a very big mega stream today with a ton of guests, and I'm very excited to be diving into this with you. So let's go ahead and bring up our screen share and make sure you are read in on what needs to be in the know starting out. First and foremost, like I remind everybody every week here on color commentary, we always have an a digest that drops every single Monday.
So if you'd go over my profile, you'll be able to find this week's edition of All Eyes on Art. It is a weekly digest where we cover all of the the art that is releasing in our broader ecosystem across all of tokenized art on most l one chains and even some physicals, all in that digest. It's available to you right now. This week's edition had 67 eye catching, collections all engaged, and I really do encourage you to check it out. There's a ton to unpack there. But, Blue, do you have any announcements or anything that you would like any everybody at home to, engage with before we get started?
Blutoshi Who? Engage stuff? You know, I'm not a big engagement guy, but I do have Donnie coming on the show tomorrow. So we're gonna go deep more on, as you know, with Donnie, it's gonna be on culture and just impressions from, the Bitcoin twenty five and Inscribing Conference, because I think all of us can kinda see this direction that everything's headed. You know, we're getting fused in more and more, and I I think there's a lot of cool things to talk about. So, yeah, Donnie's coming on tomorrow. I got Tan Tan coming on next week, but, otherwise, it was a pleasure doing all those shows with you in Vegas. I had fun even when you made me do one at, like, 02:30 in the morning, and we ended up going for, like, an hour and twenty five minutes. It was fun, man.
And and I got my second win, and that's when you got more tired. So I'm here for it. I'm here to support you, and my my picture finally looks like I'm not an eight bit character too. So up only, my
Steven Miller friend. Yeah. No. I I think I managed to fix that very last minute. I realized just as we were starting, you know what would be really fun? He was giving me so much shit for yawning on the screen the stream, the final one in Vegas. Let's let's go ahead and pixelate him just as a little bit of revenge up front, but we've since closed out of Chrome, and I think we've resolved that issue. But yeah. No. Definitely go over and make sure you're following Blue. And as we talk to all of our guests today, make sure you're giving them a follow as well because there is some incredible folks with us today we're gonna be talking with. We're gonna be sitting down with Nick Sinato from Gamma. We were also gonna be joined by Nick Four from Arch Network in a little bit here.
Then later on in the show, we'll be chatting with Kaldi and Gerard. Kaldi, of course, is the artist that I spoke with first in Vegas from the floor of the expo, and Gerard is a very good friend of both of ours from the team at Vivid Gallery. They did an incredible, incredible event in Vegas, but we wanna tell you all about what more you can look forward to there, including their big auction that they just they kicked off just this past week. Hopefully, there's time left and you can still participate in that. But then last but not least, we're gonna be rounding out today's show with a little panel conversation, a little round the horn, so to speak, chatting with our friends Ben Meadows, Violetta Zeroni, and last but certainly not least, the, the man, the myth, the legend, Donnie Klutberbach.
So I'm stoked to get into this with you, Blue. But before we dive in too much further, I do wanna ask you, coming off of Vegas, not just how are you feeling, but what was your overall impression? Right? How did you how did the entire event leave you other than exhausted?
Blutoshi It really fired up. You know? Sometimes, you know, like, with the halving last year, obviously, like, everything crescendoed, and then it went down. And we've had so many oscillations in the ordinals market, obviously, runes market, but just the space in general. There's been so much drama this year and so many fighting. And just to see everybody and to see Nick and Aaron and and the whole gang, Arthur put on such a great inscribing show. You know, like, the beauty is that that show comes first. That's kind of like our family. You know? It's it's the niche, but then you go now two days to the main Bitcoin conference, which is your crawl in the past. A lot of us never even bother going to because we we get our social, itch scratched from inscribing. So I'm fired up. You know? You and I have been obviously talking a lot more.
We've been kinda co doing shows together. It's been super fun. Like I say, I love having you as the point guard because it makes me just relax and just act dumber and goofier. I don't have to, like, run the game tempo at all, and you're you're the best fucking point guard in this whole industry. Like, you never miss a beat. You're funny. And even stuff where people make mistakes, sometimes you let it go. With Blue, you don't let it go. But I'm feeling energized now moving forward just for so many things. You know, I know Nick's gonna share a big announcement with us, which he shared at the event as the keynote speaker. There's just so much stuff come out. Magic Eden just had they're doing something with Trump in a wallet or something.
So for me, like, we just have to be patient, and we just have to keep building all of us and have fun and support each other. This space is gonna be just fine.
Steven Miller Yeah. If there is one thing that I'm I'm feeling very confident about at this point, it's that we are in fact on the rebound. Things are going to go back to normal if they're not, back to normal already. But, man, I'm just I'm amped up. I I think that's the really big type of thing you come away from the event with. We're gonna talk a whole lot about stuff like this in a little bit. Oh, yeah. But there well, we've actually got a really exciting offer in line for our phenomenal audience today. So if when we're done talking a little bit about signals, which, of course, Nick is on here shortly to discuss, you should have a a very cool link to be looking forward to there that'll get you access to some exclusive rewards live on this stream. But let's go ahead and kick this thing off, shall we?
We're gonna dive into things here with Nick. But like I do, I like to make sure we always give our guests a little bit of shine. We are gonna be joined by Nick Sainato in a little bit. You know him as the CEO and founder of Gamma. He, of course, is one of the three headed monster that runs all of the Ord events across inscribing Vegas, inscribing Nashville, inscribing Hong Kong, maybe one day inscribing Mars. But frankly, he is an absolute legend within our art scene over on Bitcoin. I am just so freaking stoked that he is here with us today. Let's go ahead and bring him in. Nick Sionado, welcome back to Color Commentary. How are you doing?
Speaker 8 Hey. Thanks, thanks for the, very generous intro. Oh, I like your salute there. And, also, yeah, inscribing Mars, hopefully, we can make that, make that a thing, at some point.
Steven Miller Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed, man. But, look, we'll we'll, of course, leave that to the future, but I'm here living in the present. And at the moment, I'm still reeling off of your big announcement from the Inscribing event, and that, of course, was everything to do with this new platform called signals. Now, obviously, everybody knows you from Gamma, but talk to us first and foremost before I get into a little bit of a video preview of what exactly signals is and how it relates to Gamma. Because that to me, I think, is a big, great starting block us to kick things off at.
Speaker 8 Sure. Yeah. I mean, I I guess first thing I'll just mention, I apologize if it looks like I'm recording this on, like, a toaster or something like that. I'm I'm in a a hotel on pretty bad Wi Fi, but hopefully, you can hear me. So yeah. So so, yeah, Gamma, if if hopefully, you're familiar. We're a sort of creator tools launch pad, for, inscriptions and NFTs on l two stacks. And and and, of course, we have our marketplace as well. And and and so signals, which, you know, I can talk a little bit about what it actually is, I guess, after the after the clip, but Signals is a a new platform. It's not like a rebrand for Gamma or anything like that. It's actually a a a second separate platform. I can talk also a little bit about why we decided to have it be a standalone platform.
I think there's really important reasons for having done that. But the idea for signals is, it it aims to solve a lot of the problems with, you know, or no one NFT launches that that plague artists and collectors and traders alike. And and we're we're coining it like a a new type of platform we're we're calling a go to market platform. So there's not really an exact alternative or competitor to what to what signals is and and aims to be as as it as it expands as well. But you can think of it sort of like a Kickstarter for creative projects, on or off the blockchain, but, obviously, our our core focus is is on, you know, ordinals and beyond. And, and the the idea is that if you have an idea for a great upcoming release and you want to, you know, see if if people are actually interested in that and get some early support, you can use signals to do that.
And, of course, on the other side of the table, if you're somebody who's looking for great upcoming releases, you can find them and discover them through Signals, and you can offer some initial support, signal some initial support in exchange for guaranteed early access to it, kind of like a white list, but a little bit more special than just a white list. So that's kind of the the the short version of it.
Steven Miller Gotcha. Well, look. I think there's a lot that we can get into with this and really just unpack it here live on the show. But I think the only way to really dive in further and then I'm gonna toss it over to Blue because I'm sure Blue's gonna have a lot of questions once we roll this video. There is a phenomenal video that you and your team prepped for the show itself, and I just would love to give our our audience a little bit of a preview of that right now. So this is live over on signals.art, but we're gonna give you a little bit of a preview as to what signals is trying to solve. Let's face it.
Speaker 2 Launches are broken. Algorithms choke discovery. There's no indication of demand or data. You don't know who's coming or what they'll pay. Creators can't gauge success, and buyers can't see what's real. What's with all these checklists and guesswork? Buying something shouldn't feel like cracking a code. That's where signals comes in. On signals, collectors show up first, so creators launch smarter. Break through the noise. Launch with real demand. Launch with signals.
Steven Miller So suffice to say, there's a lot cooking there, but I wanna toss it over to Blue as we get back to our our full full screen view here with share. Blue, what goes through your mind when you see that video? Because I know we will saw it live, but instantly, there has to be some curiosity there.
Blutoshi Yeah. For sure. I mean, Nick's right. There's so much I'm gonna say friction, but the way allow lists and and so much of how art has been purchased and collections have been purchased in PFPs, there remains a lot to be desired. And, you know, hats off to to Nick and and the whole Gamma team for figuring out, like, it's it's to me, Nick, this almost feels like a a revolution and not an evolution. Like, obviously, you're not throwing everything away, but you kinda rethought the whole thing. Because, you know, for an artist or or someone who makes a big PFP collection, there's nothing worse than, like, coming out with all this stuff, and then you've completely missed what the demand was, whether on the high or the low side. Obviously, recently, it's been more on on the lower demand and getting that price, to fit kinda perfect.
So I noticed in the video, it said, like, buyers first. Like, they come and and and I loved what you said in in your keynote. Could you explain more how the buyers can kinda signal to the artists and and how this actually works where where what they kinda input can tell the sellers and give them a lot of info for their collections.
Speaker 8 Yeah. Absolutely. Also, I I appreciate the the revolution, not evolution. I feel like that's that's that's very grandiose way to describe it, but I it's certainly the aim. Like, we we're we're this is this is sort of like just to to hit on one point, and then I'll I'll get your question. You know, this is sort of why we did a separate platform. We we were thinking like, you know, Gamma, I'm super proud of what we've created there, and and the team has put in so much work and and effort. And it's something that we are gonna continue to, you know, work tirelessly on on improving. But, ultimately, it's it it is a, what I think is a great example of what an existing sort of offering for helping creators get their work onto the blockchain looks like and and, you know, and then trading those once they're once they're out.
And so, you know, that's that's that's great, but it still exists within, like, the the confines of of what of what people are used to. And I think, you know, in part, we wanted to help signal, I guess, pun intended, that, that, you know, there there is, something something quite different here. It's a bit of a paradigm shift, and and we think that, the way in which projects go to market now is is flawed, and I don't think that it's creator's fault. I I I think it's, it's unfortunate that artists and projects and brands have to not only think about making an amazing thing that you want to purchase, but also be great salespeople and marketers and strategists on on pricing and beyond. Like, that's not generally Right. A skill set that that one person has.
Usually, they're they're great at the creative side of things, and I want them to be focused on the creative side of things and not have to worry about that side of things. So that's sort of why we're we're saying signals is a go to market platform. And and, yeah, like, to to get into sort of the the mechanic of how it works, imagine you are you're a a creator and you have an upcoming project. Like, let's say, you know, Steven has his Behold collection that he's working on and and he wants to bring that to market. You know, if you've been following Steven for a while, which hopefully you have if you're watching the show, you you probably saw the weeks and weeks and weeks of lead up. And even still to today, all of this effort that went into, you know, just staging all of that marketing, all of that release.
And Steven is is is better at marketing than than I think the average person who's just focused on on creative. And and so and, you know, that that tremendous amount of work is is difficult. But if he were to come, let's say, with Behold edition two or something like that, he could come to signals and he could say, I have, this upcoming release, and, and the collection, let's say, has, a thousand spots that I want to, provide to the market. And those spots could represent anything. They could represent inscriptions. They could represent, NFTs. They could represent physical prints. They could represent even, like, tickets to an event or access to your private Discord. It could be really any deliverable that you are offering that is in limited supply. And you're saying I have, you know, let's say, a thousand of these, and I'm basically gauging market demand.
And so that's that's what the creator does. They basically provide the upcoming release. They explain that release. They give information as to why you might be interested in that release, and they and they indicate how many are available. They also can optionally set something like a reserve price because there is a price component that I'll get into. But let's let's assume to keep it simple that they say, I'm just gonna decide to let, you know, the market tell me what this is worth. And now on the flip side, let's say I'm a collector or a trader and I'm interested in this release, I can go and find it on signals, and I can say, oh, I really like this. And as a platform, signals, we offer you something we call a daily pulse.
And the daily pulse is basically a free credit once a day that you can come and you can raise your hand and say, I'll accept basically a white list for this project for free. And so at that point, that's, like, the minimum level of interest that you can signal. And you're you're basically just saying, yeah. I think, you know, this release is cool, and I'm interested in it. And and you pay nothing. Again, this is just something you can do once a day for free. But let's say you really like something enough to the point where you'd actually be willing to pay for it. At that point, you can place a bid. And so you can say, I think this project is worth a $100, or I think this project is worth $500. Whatever number you decide, you just let us know that number.
And and then we ask the same question to everyone else that's interested in the project. And through sort of, like, a collective market price discovery period, we determine what is a fair market price for the collection. And so by the very end of that project, once a signals project reaches its its sort of completed, hopefully, success state, we'll say, alright. There were a thousand spots, and maybe there were 3,000 people interested. We're going to go and sort all of these bids in order from top to bottom, and we're gonna Take the one thousandth spot in a clearing price auction, and we're gonna say whoever placed that one thousandth spot's bid, let's say it was $75, that is going to be the purchase price for this collection. And if you bid below that, you're not getting a spot. And if you bid above that, no worries, no risk.
You actually just get a refund of the, of of external, I'm sorry, any excess money that you that you bid. And then just to close it out, because I think it's relevant to another point, Steven raised that poker chip before. How do we make sure the bids are honest? We, we actually require you to put a 10% deposit to back up your bid, and you do this in, in these little, like, in app credits that we call bars. So you can think of, like, gold bars or signal bars. And so these bars, are are really our way of of having you back up that that deposit, in a way that, you know, you don't have to spend network fees to to to back things, and we don't have to spend network fees to send them back to you. So you can really make, like, small deposits without any delays or any friction.
So, yeah, that's, that's kind of an overview of of how it works. Not sure if there's So it feels almost
Blutoshi very Dutch auction based. Is that fair? Like, NodeMonks comes to mind where, like, everyone went down in the lowest bid. So, basically, if you have a thousand, the thousandth lowest will then be the the set price, if you will, for the entire collection. Is that accurate?
Speaker 8 So it's the the the latter part you said is true. The NodeMonks example is close, but they sort of did this this, like, hybrid model where it was a Dutch auction, meaning the the the price that a collection will go for is, let's say, starts at 1 Bitcoin and comes down. Right. And then at some point, it it meets, you know, all pieces run out, and then there's a clearing price that that you're referring to. This this doesn't have the Dutch auction component. So this is just a straight clearing price auction where, yeah, that that that thousandth bid in this example would be the one that clears and sets the price for everyone. And I think this is important for a couple of reasons. One, it it makes sure that, you know, you're not penalized for overbidding.
And number two, it it, I think, more accurately reflects what true market demand is for your the entirety of your collection. Like, you might have, you know, 10 or 20 true fans that are willing to pay crazy amounts of money to to be part of what you're doing. But if you don't have someone to take up the full supply of your collection, well, then, really, that wasn't the right price, for for all 1,000 pieces. And so I think it's more of an accurate reflection of market demand when it's a clearing price. But then the nice side effect of that is that if you have your, you know, your true fans that were willing to pay more, since they were able to secure it for less money, they potentially would be interested then in purchasing someone secondary.
And so I think it actually creates a nice, balance between, establishing a fair price and ensuring that the creator is getting, you know, the the most funds for the work that they put into it, while at the same time leaving room for trading after the fact. Because I think we need to, you know, recognize the space that we're in, and some people do like to invest in projects with the hopes of it appreciating in value on in the short term. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and I don't think, you know, they should be punished for overbidding or something like that.
Steven Miller Yeah. No. You Yeah. For sure. What about multiple Blue, I'm I'm gonna jump the gun for with you real quick. It's a really, really important utility that you guys are bringing to the table there because it's insight that a lot of these artists have never really had before. Right? That's a very, very big thing right off jump. But I would be remiss if I didn't take pause for exactly two seconds to just jump back and reintroduce the other the other Nick that we have with us now. Nick Ford is with us from Arch Network. Nick, thank you so so much for being with us. I believe you are unmuted. Maybe you're unmuted? Now you're unmuted. Uh-huh. I'm right
Steven Miller Yep. Perfect. I'm so glad you're able to be with us today. From the all around perspective, there's a lot of different ways that not only what we're talking about with signals can be beneficial to artists who use Gamma. But I have to imagine because what you guys are building with signals is not just limited to Bitcoin, it's not just limited to Gamma, there's gonna be opportunities for artists who wanna deploy using Arch to start funding their projects on signals as well. So there's really unique value to be had there. Have you guys had any talks in the back channel yet about what that might look like to have crossovers?
Speaker 0 It's a really good question. For
Speaker 8 the first time here, but we're open to it.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, like, maybe Matt and Caleb. Matt, of course, our founder and Caleb, our head of eco. Not sure if we've had that conversation, Nick, but we definitely should. So I I appreciate, you know, the matchmaking happening here because, obviously, you guys are doing some really interesting stuff. I'm super excited to see how it all works out. But I I can't imagine there's you know, any anything that, you know, involves Bitcoin programmability that can involve smart contracts in a more base layer experience, something that's much closer to the l one, you know, something that obviously can be done for Arch. And so we're and I think I think what people don't always realize is that one of the key values of Arch is that all these, like, isolated apps or, like, you know, things that are being built can finally find a way to connect with each other, you know, route them through Arch and still be settling on the base layer in a way that respects and settles with Bitcoin banalities.
So, yeah, tapping into a larger ecosystem of apps is absolutely essential for any sort of, blockchain. And so I think, yeah, we're we're happy to be a support system for that.
Steven Miller That's awesome to hear all on its own. But when I think about the larger value there, it really is that, like, you guys are trying to make something that's mass market appeal. Right? That's hard to come by right now across all of web three, and it's not something that everybody is thinking about. So give us an idea just from your perspective, Nick Sinato, where exactly do we see crossover occurring most readily right now? Because I think that people are looking for those types of engagements, those ways to plug in with an application like this. And you would even mention this thing goes as far as, like, Shopify. Right? Like, this could really be used broadly. So paint us a little picture on that, and then we'll start turning the page over into the announcements that we got from from Arch Network during the entirety of b twenty five week.
Speaker 8 Yeah. Yeah. So so this is this is probably the the thank you for queuing this up because I was gonna say earlier was what I was talking about was, like, one reason we kind of made signals a separate platform and and brand. And and this is really, I think, the second one and and arguably a a more important reason. So, you know, we we Gamma, Gamma is, you know, focused on on Bitcoin, and and really, like, helping people launch specifically on Bitcoin, and we want to have it, remain that way. Like, I think that's the, you know, the the the experience we built up, the trust we built up, the reputation we built up is that Gamma is is focused on Bitcoin, and and we don't wanna, we don't wanna lose that focus, on on the Gamma side.
But what we're building with signals, we we think that, for a number of reasons, it's actually a stronger offering, and it adds value to more people and to more potential use cases and platforms if it reaches, you know, beyond to to virtually any creative project on or off the blockchain, you know, and and on any blockchain and on any drop site. And so, you know, if signals is a superior method to launch a project to go to to go to market with a project, and in my opinion, it is by a mile, then then we'd almost be doing a disservice to creators by not letting them use it as a general utility, you know, and and and sort of, like, service and platform to then go drop anywhere.
And so, absolutely, like, to use the Arch example, you know, if somebody wanted to to do something more programmable with NFTs or something like that, and, you know, maybe they wanna do, like, staking or something like that, which would be quite challenging to do on on on l one, you know, in the absence of of something like smart contracts. You can 100% come to signals, you know, kind of share your idea with the market. And then at the very end of it, you would just need to provide whatever details is needed to launch on Arch, and Signals will handle kind of bundling that up in a pretty way, putting a bow on it, and passing it off to whatever drop site or platform or website or, you know, whatever is being used on the ARC side of things. So and similar, like you said, to Shopify.
Let's say you had physical prints that you wanted to sell, and and you wanted to sort of, like, help get these out and and, you know, prove that there's demand for them before you go and, you know, spend all the money to go and print those up, you could you could also do that with signals. So that's sort of, like Yeah. The the the vision for it. And and then just one one other mention is on being mass market, we we try to make it so that it's easy to onboard to signals because our hope is that signals can be a first touch point for many people into blockchain and crypto. So our focus is really, on making exceptional, like, you know, user experiences and and really easy onboarding flows.
And, in some ways, I almost feel like, we you know, like, our the team is incredibly talented in that way, and, and and they're almost being limited by the pain of setting up a wallet, getting crypto from an exchange. Like, all of those 30 step processes involved in doing those things. Like, if we can just make a super seamless experience to say, hey. Come with your email address or Twitter account or whatever and sign up for signals, get that early stake in a project, have your your interest sort of secured, and get that early access spot. And then once you have that early access spot, we will then give you the guides to easily set up a wallet and get some Bitcoin or or whatever you need to to purchase it.
And and and, basically, it's like we can't get rid of that painful process, but we can at least do it later and defer that until you have a reason to actually do it. So you're not just gonna walk away and say, ah, no. This is too difficult for me.
Steven Miller Which altogether is new on its own. But, Nick, I heard you start starting to interject with something in in the middle there. What were your
Speaker 0 thoughts in the middle? Yeah. First of all, 110% agree with what Nick is saying about the need to make the user journey so much easier, and I love that perspective of let's, like, make sure that you have a valid reason to wanna build in this space to have some, you know, market credibility first, and then, you know, add those little friction points. Because the friction points, at least to this point, are there, but we can add it once it's clear the payoff of dealing with them is there too. So from a marketing perspective and from a user experience perspective, I love that. Secondly, I was just gonna mention, like, in addition to, yeah, like, just moving things over, from programmability standpoint, it makes sense for, staking or something like that.
You know, we have a platform that's building on us and have called Ordiz, which is specifically meant to allow people to essentially buy now, pay later ordinals, which could be something very useful for a collection that is starting off with an intense program. It's like, then you can get even more leverage on where, you know, people could be buying more of them, for a lower price. And then also, there are gonna be ways in which you can most likely borrow against your word-of-mouth, right, and things like that. And all these things will be really valuable things where you you signal the intent and you find, you know, the proof points there first with gamma and with, with this, but then you can, you know, transition into, doing more with those assets, in a multiple gamble
Speaker 0 like Bitcoin apps that are built in the arch.
Steven Miller Gotcha. Yeah. And and, Blue, I wanna throw it to you because we're gonna bring it up on screen for just a second here. We had done a little bit of a preview video earlier of signals, but if you're unfamiliar yet with Arch, they really are trying to build rails on l 1 Bitcoin for a lot more of a diverse experience through what they're calling Arch VM. And and, Nick, I would love for you to be able to tell us a little bit more about it. But, Blue, I do wanna put it to you and ask you very first and foremost, how red in are you on Arch? Because I think that a lot of us vary when it comes to, like, focusing on culture, focusing on art, and trying to figure out where a lot of these different protocols that are up and coming fit in.
But are you red in on it yet, Blue, or are you, still just kind of in the learning mode?
Blutoshi Yeah. No. Arch is definitely on my radar. I have not done a deep dive yet. I know that, as this, the attention spans in this economy, they move very quickly sometimes for builders, obviously, way too quickly. But from what I understand, Arch is more way more l one than some of the other shiny Pachinko machines that we've seen with, like, an Odin Fun on ICP or stuff like that. So, yeah, I I I know a lot of people in in my shroom circles, and and a lot of folks that I talk to every day are definitely buzzing about it. I know when Snoop Doshi's got his eyes on something, the guy iterates as fast as LIFO FIFO, and those are two of the fastest guys in the space in my opinion. So, I'm I'm all ears. So, yeah, I'd love to hear more, Nick, and, ask questions as the they arrive.
Speaker 0 Yeah. That's, that's great to hear. And, I can give you guys a primer real quickly. I think that was a great way of describing it. It's trying to build much more l one native programmable experience while importantly not sacrificing on user experience and speed. And that is a tall task as you guys know. That typically was the devil's trade off that you had to make. We call it the Bitcoin builder's dilemma where it's like, okay. And for the longest time, no one built anything on Bitcoin just because it seemed basically impossible to do anything interesting with it. But then we had Ornos theory and all the unlocks that happened with that. Then you need, like, developer infrastructure to make it worthwhile and to make it more useful. And then you had the point where it's like, okay. So I can build on Bitcoin, but it's gonna be slow.
It's gonna be slow Bitcoin and block times. It's gonna be really clunky UX. Not gonna really have interoperability with other apps, you know, because most importantly, you know, it doesn't have a native VM. Right? There's no execution environment natively on Bitcoin. And then the alternative was, okay. Well, you can do more programmable things, but you're gonna have to bridge or wrap your assets into some l two. Right? And those were really the two choices. And what we found was a lot of people made bets on the let's build or wrap assets on l two. You see, like, build on Bitcoin and Bob. You see Stacks was the traditional forerunner in that. You see botanics, things like that. And we actually took a little bit longer to come to market. We're actually nearing the end of test net. It may not come in next month or two.
We're in security review right now, so we're just waiting for that to finish up. But, we came longer to market than, some of these others because it was a more complicated thing we wanted to do. Because we didn't wanna just build a EVM copy paste, l two. You would have a bridge or a process too. What we found is, frankly, we didn't think people actually wanted that. There's no use case for it. But it was a big bet because that's a lot easier to get developers to build on. It's something where I can just bring over my Solidity contract or in Solana case, bring over a Rust contract. We actually create a fork of the Solana Rust VM, but we found a way to wrap it with UTXO based assets so that, you can or so that you can actually communicate with UTXOs on the base layer.
We also you know, you mentioned Odin. File which uses ICP. You know, they have a multisig type of arrangement, but we actually took the most cutting edge kind of most secure version of a multisig. And what we do is we actually have our validation set, which are decentralized, also be the decentralized signers for that. The big difference there is, like, probably, l twos and other things. You might have, like, thirteen, fourteen signers. They have no way to decentralize that value that you're sent. It's all centralized. It's all permissioned. You're moving from the permissionlessness and decentralization of Bitcoin, and then you're trusting, essentially, like, you know, decentralized users. You know, we don't believe people wanna make that bet, and what we did is by creating this specific Frost plus Rose framework, we're actually able to do a really scalable permissionless decentralized signer set.
It's the only model like it that exists that allows you to actually trust that signer set. And so with us, you don't have to bridge your wrap assets. And when you do trust the signer set, you're only trusting further decentralization. And I think that's gonna be a big difference. So I think and I guess in the last point and the most important point in addition to all that is that when you're actually interacting with the Bitcoin apps that are using Arch, you're just doing it out of your Bitcoin wallet. So it feels like it's native, but with faster speeds, because it is native in that sense. But, like, it has faster speeds. You can do certain transactions within the RPM and have them finalize a Bitcoin, and you can trust this centralization essentially.
Steven Miller And it it's really incredible what you guys are making possible there. Right? Because it's been a struggle up until this point. I mean, I think that everybody wants to talk l two l two l two, but to think about doing it in the way that you guys are doing it, it makes it a lot more comfortable feeling like you still have that very, you know, layer of security that we look for from l one. But, Blue, what do you take away from it? What are you what are you left thinking about? Because I do think we are gonna have to start transitioning here over into a couple of our other guests that we've got lined up for us today. But I do wanna make sure that if we can direct any other questions to educate people on Arch and signals that we do so. So I'll toss it to you, my friend.
Blutoshi No. I appreciate it. It sounds like a sandbox we definitely, that that I need to play more and more. And like I said, wherever Snoop Doshi goes, I tend to I tend to follow. And it sounds like, you know, we obviously, with Bitcoin, ten minute block times, you have you know, there's limitations there. Right? And under the hood, I I heard you mention Solana. So you're you're using I know it's Bitcoin layer one, but, you know, to to validate and confirm things in real time. What what what is under the hood again? I just wanna make sure I understand that piece at least No.
Speaker 0 Part. It's a very it's a very good question. So the easiest way to describe it is it's almost like a like a parallel chain that's operating at the same time, and the big difference is that we created instrumental indexing so that you can actually within this On a it's a Solana based VM that then has been altered to be able to translate in real time with UTXOs. So it is a completely different VM. It's the ArchVM. And, you know, in that sense, it is like another chain. Like, you know, there's no doubt about that. But the difference is that the activities that are happening in the chain and validated by the chain are just being done like that so that you can then verify it directly on the base chain too.
The way that works is that, when you're interacting with a Bitcoin app that uses Arch, first of all, the developers can choose how fast they want that app to be and whether it's gonna be at Bitcoin based times or whether they're gonna utilize the Arch VM. But when you're using the Arch VM, you can go at sub second speeds. Right? You can use that use the full performance of, like, a Solana based Rust based VM. Now the tricky part is that you are still gonna have to wait, of course, for a finality on Bitcoin to settle on ten minute times. There's no getting around that if you're gonna use Bitcoin. What we do is we create a way for you to speed up those transactions when you're interacting with the app, like, you were trading on a DEX and you're swapping.
But then because we're constantly aware of what's happening on the base layer, we can roll back those functions, roll back those transactions if they don't settle correctly on the base layer. So it's kind of like, you know, Dan Held, one of our investors, Asymmetric, he always talks about how, like, any sort of meta protocol is kinda like putting augmented reality glasses on Bitcoin. And, like, that's kinda like the user experience is shifting toward more of a performant baseline base layer that, they would expect. But when you actually take off the glasses, it's still just Bitcoin, and nothing has been altered or changed. And what's really, really cool about that is that you see all these, like, you know, solutions to performance that people have proposed that may or may not ever happen, you know, and they are things like, HopCat, right, for example.
And there's, like it's not even just that it might be hard for it to actually occur. We don't know how much it's actually gonna improve performance. And at the end of the day, it feels like a futurist because you're talking about actual fork of Bitcoin, you and changing the base layer. What's cool about this is that you're someone who wants more programmability. You know, you can use this. You can use Arch, and you don't have to change the base layer in order to access this. But anyone who doesn't wanna use that, it doesn't affect your Bitcoin experience at all. If anything, it should just add to your Bitcoin experience because if you're like a Maxi and you're just holding your Bitcoin, you must be knowing and be worried about that Bitcoin security rewards, making sure that miners still remain incentivized to continue to give, security to the Bitcoin network.
And you don't have to risk losing Bitcoin in order to give those rewards with more programmability. So I think this is a great option which understands the fact that people wanna be on the base layer and they wanna take decentralized trust assumptions, but they don't wanna have to, like, you know, forever change Bitcoin just to access that. And that's kind of the the niche, the in between phase that we've kinda tried to build in, just being really aware of what people actually want.
Steven Miller Yeah. No. I'm I'm I'm super interested in the way that you guys have developed it. And I've I was fortunate enough to speak at the Arch event, on Wednesday and get a better idea of, you know, what it was that other builders on that application layer are going to be doing. So a huge tip of the cap to some of the folks over there that are building within your ecosystem, like, they're doing is insane. We're talking about met like, major, you know, high speed transaction throughput, you know, bundling. There's so much at work here, but I'm excited to see what else we can see from creators, right, looking at the art side of things, bringing their artwork over onto ArchVM, and potentially seeing them do so in collaboration with SignalRestart. So, gentlemen, I am so grateful that you guys took the time to come through and share a little bit about these announcements today.
But I do want to make sure that we give you guys one final opportunity to kinda give your respective pitches. Again, this has been Nick Sainato and Nick Four. Nick Sainato from Gamma and Signals. Nick Four from Arch Network. Gentlemen, how can our audience, best connect with you? I'll throw it to you first, Nick Four.
Speaker 0 Yeah. You can follow me on at nick four, I e z o s. Nick four, I e z o s. But also, you know, we got Arch just at arch at arch network, a r c h n t w r k. Let me just give a shout out to Aeons and also a lot of the other great Warnell's communities. We've had so much support from the Warnell's community. You guys are killing it and doing so many interesting things. I think it makes just all Bitcoin much more interesting, playful, and exciting. And, just want to really shout out in particular because they were one of our sponsors at the conference, but also, you know, we've done points reward programs for their whole
Steven Miller So I I I think we caught most of what you were saying. Breaking up a little. Yeah. Yeah. But I I was just about to say that comes with the territory of tune giving us your attention on vacation. So I appreciate you coming through, Nick. Nick Sainato, I'm gonna toss it to you. How can our, listeners connect with you and, get more, educated on what you're building over at signals?
Speaker 8 Yeah. Again, thanks for, thanks for having us on. Also, I'll I'll totally ditto that with Aeons. Like, I mean, obviously, it looks like sponsors here of the of the stream, but but also just fantastic work on the on the Bitcoin art side of things. So, yeah, I think, you know, you can keep up with Gamma at Try Gamma. You can keep up with me at Nixonado, and you can keep up with signals at signals art. You can go to signals.art to get started. Also, Steven, do you have that poker chip in hand? I actually don't have mine in hand, but but the we gave out these poker chips at at Inscribe in Vegas, and and they entitled the the, you know, claimer of it to between, like, a a couple of 100 bars of these these these credits that you use to to back up your deposits when bidding on things on signals.
And, and, Steven, you know, is a is a hard negotiator and tried to get max, max reward for, listeners of the stream. And so, he strong armed me into giving a 300 bar code to everyone listening if you go sign up at signals.art. You can use hashtag, all capital letters, hashtag b 25 rewind. That will be active probably for the next twenty four, forty eight hours, something like that, if he doesn't bankrupt us. But but, hopefully, you guys can can can join signals and get started, and you can even refer some friends and and get some some additional bar rewards as well, which, which will let you get access to some great projects that are upcoming. We have we have, drops, partnered with Encora, with Pauline Fife. We have a drop, with our partners, at Tradeport. This is a Mega Wavesmakers by the Megapont, artist, Weasley.
We have a release with Burst, detailing the history of Ordinals, Ordinals yearbook. We have a release with Jack Butcher called Equilibrium that actually leans into the signals mechanic. And and we have a release with Arto called Gardens that is very hush-hush at the moment, but those are the ones we've announced so far. Of course, plenty more coming, and it'll be open to anyone to use. But these are the the the early ones that we've announced and you can get access to and use your free bars to to go and back.
Steven Miller I was gonna say it's a powerful thing. So do check the chat. We also posted about it as well if you want that referral code. But do check that out within the next twenty four to forty eight hours so you can sign up using it and, get your little bar bonus. But, gentlemen, I appreciate you guys coming through. It was a pleasure having you, and I'm glad we could spotlight some of these announcements that you guys made and, of course, bring some more attention to the platforms.
Speaker 0 Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Appreciate
Blutoshi Good times, gentlemen.
Steven Miller Blue, what do you think? They were put those are some pretty big developments from both Arch and Signals.
Blutoshi Yeah. I mean, it just shows there's so much cool stuff being built right now. And two great guys, two great teams, and, you know, building out more speed, especially on l one of Bitcoin, you know, with with Nick for an arch. And, obviously, Nick's Nick's been around with Gamma for a while. He understands, how to connect artists and collectors. It's not an easy one to do. You know, a lot of what we have right now, we inherited from ETH. Right? And some of that stuff worked in it. We're we're in a super hot, high demand market. That stuff works. But, you know, builders really come in the down markets when you've gotta be able to ebb and flow with any type of market you're in because good art is good art. Right? And I'm really excited for what Nick and signals are doing.
And, god, what a what a great drop. How many bars is it? Like, three or 400 per person? So, yeah, b 25
Blutoshi Yeah. That was pretty cool. So I know I'm gonna take her with I'm gonna take her with both of these things. And, yeah, I'm excited for it. And it just shows, like, bear you know, obviously, Bitcoin's not in a bear, but ordinals and runes and and collecting an art kind of are. And these guys are building exactly when you should be building, and they're waking up every day. They're getting out there, and they're getting the message out, and I think it's great.
Steven Miller Yep. No. It's it's definitely what this ecosystem needs to continue to forge ahead. But speaking of forging ahead, we've got two incredible, folks lined up for you next. We were talking art a little bit in the lead, but now we're going all in on art with our next two guests. Now just to set the table for you real quick, we're joined next by Koldi and Gerard Fernandez. Koldi is one of the greatest stereoscopic artists of our time. He, of course, was showing a ton of incredible work at, the v twenty five expo. And and, of course, Gerard had a huge event during this entire conference. So we're gonna give a huge, huge tip of the cap to both of these gentlemen in just one moment.
But, Blue, before we do, I wanna make sure that you give the opportune get the opportunity to set the table for them, maybe give them a little bit of shine in your own way because they're coming up here in just one moment.
Blutoshi Oh, man. I'm so excited. You you threw it to me before they came on. Okay. So well, first, Gerard. I mean, Gerard's, like, one of my best friends in the space. What what he has done with Piero at Vivid is nothing short of incredible. They always get good artists. They're always learning, pivoting, growing from what the market demands are. And, you know, obviously, I've been a vivid collector since the very early days. I'm very involved with with that group and, you know, been on their show a lot, helped them with the the video spaces, which shame on you, Gerard, looks way better than mine and Steven's combined. Like, the the vivid the vivid video set is just absolutely incredible. So Gerard is definitely an innovator in this space. He's great. So getting to Kaldi, and I and when I first got home, I was exhausted.
The first person oh, no. Kaldi DM me because that's how hard working is, but the first person I was gonna DM was Kaldi. And Kaldi's like, hey, Blue. Nice to meet you. Steven, when you and I were on that floor of the Expo Center, Colby what you and I were in and out. We were doing lots of different things in different places, but we were in the art section for a while. Colby was always there, and Colby always had a line of people who were waiting to talk to him. And Colby stood up. Like, you guys gotta remember, like, with all the the jackpot machines and casinos and, you know, this Expo Center that's literally three football fields filled with, like you know, the the corporate bros have definitely come in with their slick marketing and stuff.
Colby is sitting here by his art, staying humble, creating art, and he just showed up day in and day out. And I gotta say, Colby, to me, that was a huge inspiration. And, you know, I always tell Steven, like, I I love your art anyway. But for me, once I get to start to know people and see kind of their work ethic and who they are as a person, I was like, I like this guy. I've already bid twice, by the way, on your megalith.art, and the screen open now. I I love that piece. We'll get to that. I know. But, Colby, thank you for being you, and thank you for setting example, dude, for for this whole space because, you know, I know I know you're a humble dude, but, like, that the the amount of time you spent there with people and, you know, even old guys looking at the ceiling, like, kicking over our lights when we're interviewing you, like, you were just there.
You were humble. You do your art, and you hang out with people, and you just stay grounded. So thank you for being you, dude.
Speaker 7 Wow. Thank you so much. Am I coming through clear to you guys? Loud and clear
Steven Miller and Gerard, as as soon as you unmute, you'll be good to go too. But, yeah, Colby, the it was it was special. You were putting on a clinic out there.
Speaker 7 Thank you. Yeah. I I take things like, when I have an opportunity to have my art up, the only place I wanna be is in front of that art. You know? Like, yeah, we're in Vegas, and there's a shit ton of things that are fun to do, but I wasn't there to do any of those things. Right? So I pre I appreciate it because, you know, we had the opportunities. Why not seize the moment? And you never you never know who's gonna walk around the corner too at these events. You know, there's NFT events where you you see a lot of familiar faces and, you know, this, Bitcoin conference, it was really, like, 99% new faces. And the the conversations I had, the people I met, there were some mind blowing people who were very understated, who would just saunter up there.
And after talking for probably two seconds, I can suss out a gigabrain, and, we would get into some rabbit holes that, you know that's why I stay there. Right? There'd be six hours of, you know, telling the filthy Fiat story and moving the magnets around. And then the little gents find ways, and then you you meet some really wonderful people. So, yeah, I appreciate you noticing that, I guess, because I was there the whole time.
Blutoshi I I Colby, I gotta imagine you have the most comfortable, like, thick soled pair of shoes ever. Because when I stand up for that long, like, you you literally were probably in, like, a three by three square foot of your like you said, every once in a while, you get to move around the magnets. But but, you know, like you said, the the conversations that you have, like, obviously, some of it's repetitious explaining your art and stuff, but then you go down a rabbit hole with some, and you're like, you know what? Those conversations made everything worth it. And I assume that inspires your future art too.
Speaker 7 Oh, yeah. No. It's it's it's amazing. You know, I like to dabble in all kinds of different topics, and many of those things aren't even art related. And it's fun when something else comes up that is, like, part of a rabbit hole that I've investigated. And you see them light up too. Right? We're just talking. Like, I I can talk to anybody about anything, but sometimes these fun little topics come up. It's like, oh, let's let's dive into that one for shit. I'm there for eight hours. I will just talk to somebody forever. It was it was super, super fun, and you guys work your ass off. And I was watching you guys too, and you guys were not lollygagging around. You had you have a professional livestream setup. It's on point. No one does it like you too. So hats off to you.
You busted your ass. I saw you constantly. So very good job. The space needs more people like you, but you do you, which is what I what I like.
Steven Miller And I certainly appreciate that. I I think the thing that I did wanna mention as well, talking about people that straight up just keep on grinding, we have somebody who literally left Vegas and went straight into a shipping container. So I gotta give up all the respect and the love in the world to my brother Gerard from Vivid Gallery. This dude's much of a hustler as anybody. So, Gerard, unmute if you can and let us know what you have going on, man, because you were crushing it.
Speaker 9 Well, thank thank you so much,
Speaker 9 Actually, it is it is kind of hard.
Speaker 8 I don't know if people will notice that we are in zombie mode right now. But, yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 9 the invite. We're doing our best. First, I wanna say hi to the the Eons team. I didn't know that they were doing this with you, so very happy for them. And and, well, I appreciate the all, of course, all your your work. Appreciate your kind words, Lou. Always nice to to hear
Speaker 8 you talking about Vivid.
Speaker 9 But, yeah, we we just landed in Lisbon. As you can see, backstage, setting setting up the exhibition here in in NFC Lisbon. It's a lot of work, but tomorrow's gonna look better. I promise. For now, it's it's only the the back backstage things.
Steven Miller Well, that's all that's all well and good, though. We love getting the chance to see a little bit behind the scenes. But both of you gentlemen, regardless of where you are in the world, I know, Colby, you're back at home base now. Gerard is with our our good buddy, Scotch Fox. Good to see you, buddy. Hey, You but you both you both have, like, major auctions ongoing at the moment, and I would be remiss if I didn't bring them up, live right now on the stream. So would love to talk a little bit about these. But right now, Gerard, to put it to you, because I don't know at what point your signal is going to inevitably fall off, you know, that being near a shipping container. We'd love to put it to you first.
Talk to us a little bit about the auctions that kicked off live from Vegas because you've got some incredible work, from the artists in your corner over at Vivid.
Speaker 9 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Actually, I'm very proud of of this this auction because the four artworks are completely amazing. We have put a lot of work into that, and I think that most of them are also very, you know, innovative or at least completely new from what we are used to do at Vivid. We have one piece from Medusa who is revolutionizing the you know, what we are going to inscribe on Bitcoin. He he has done this AI artwork representing Rene Rene Magritte, exactly this one. And instead of just inscribing the artwork and having a low resolution file, he decided to play with this painting algorithm and just inscribing, you know, the brushstrokes instructions. So, actually, what's inscribing there is just the algorithm and the instructions to reproduce, to render this this artwork on chain, and you get thirteen, fourteen megabyte resolution high resolution artwork with just a few lines of codes.
So to me, this is just opening the doors to all the artists that were like, oh, yeah. It's very expensive to inscribe on Bitcoin. We we cannot we cannot come and and just inscribe our AI artworks or other things. Well, with some creativity, you can. And maybe, you know, with the help of of some technical people, I think that that there are a lot of opportunities. So, yeah, very innovative. That's the first one. We have a we have one from Ducti, the first exactly. This one, I love One from the team. I always come prepared, my
Speaker 9 Thank you, bro. This is the first, from a seven or nine pieces collection. We're still doing the creation with, with the collectors. And what amazes me with this one is actually the the physical painting because instead of doing a print, we did this painting, robot assisted painting, and it looks awesome. Well, you you got the chance to see it in in Las Vegas. Right? It looks completely amazing, and I think it gives exactly the feeling that Docti wants to transmit with this collection. So, yeah, very, very cool. Just We have just...
Steven Miller I I I wanna pause you there. We're gonna go to the next in a sec, but I need to ask Coldy and Blue what they think of these two initially. Blue, I know you were there. You were live in person. Of course, Gerard just dropped off right out of the Blue just as soon as I tell him, hey. We need to make sure we flatter him about the artist he's showcasing. But, Blue, what do you... What did you think about seeing this in person? And then, Colby, I'm gonna come back to you on the Medusa one because I think they're both really, really interesting. So, Blue, I'll take it to you first.
Blutoshi Yeah. I loved it. I mean, Doc T is such a a creative, clever artist, and and, you know, he... He's working with different media. But when I saw this, I was like, you know, I've never seen a painting from him, but I was like, this is decidedly doc t. So, you know, again, like, I love watching people work in different media and and just continue to to grind and to to flow and and generate their art, you know, that they love because the more they're creating, obviously, the more it kind of shapes who they are as kind of the overall arch of the artist they are. But but I love this. I I love the piece. I would definitely put this up in my house. Like, already, once I came back from Vegas, I was like, okay. Like, I had, like, 10 pieces, of course, cold is included.
Like, all these pieces, I'm like, I wanna put them everywhere. And my house is southern facing. It's like all windows on one side. I have, like, four walls to put stuff. So I'm like, there's the reality, and then there's, like, the actual, there's what I want, and then there's the space that I do. But, no, Doc T's stuff is great, and this is no exception.
Steven Miller Yeah. No. It's it's a special piece of work. Seeing the physical was wild in person. But I think the way that we're gonna kinda break this up, because we're gonna be showcasing five different auctions here today for this art segment. I wanna put it to Koldi next to get your impressions because, Kaldi, while you have your own work, I'm curious if you've ever seen anything like the Medusa piece because you and I both have spent a ton of time within web three in art, you clearly more than me, but I don't know if we've seen something like this. And it it certainly strikes me that it's special.
Speaker 7 Yeah. No. It's... First of all, Gerard, nice to meet you. This is just really, really amazing stuff. Nice to
Speaker 9 meet you, man. Love your work. Very
Speaker 7 nice. Thank you. This blew me away. You know? Like, you know, you feel like you've seen things after a certain amount of time, and this really throws everything on its head with the painterly see it in front of your eyes, the way it's rendering. It's it's fantastic. Yeah. You know, I I... I'm kinda speechless. I just love the way it looks, and it keeps forming itself even those little nuances as it keeps coming together. To me, art is an attention based medium where sometimes you can sidestep pieces out of gallery and you're just kind of flowing through. This is a great example of an attention piece that not only do you watch it the whole loop, but I'm continually watching it and looking at different aspects. Right? So kudos to making a piece that is, like, ADD proof that people need to look at. So...
Wow. I mean, that's... That in itself is a feat. So I'm I'm... I love it. I can't wait to see more about this.
Steven Miller Yeah. It's it's a very special piece, and I give Gerard and the team at Vivid all the credit in the world for it. But just to kind of take a break here for two seconds, because, again, we have two more phenomenal lots that Vivid's auctioning right now. Gerard, I'm gonna ask your opinion on Koldi's art next because Koldi still has an auction that's currently live over at megalith.art for the filthy fiat flag. Now just to set the stage for us for a little bit here, we saw this piece in person. And I... I mean, look. I'm not gonna lie. I was very taken with it. I love your artwork, Colby. You know that very well. But set the stage for us about what what filthy fiat flag is on... Whether it's, like, in the physical form and on chain.
But then just set the stage in general because I want Gerard to be able to speak to what he thinks of this as well.
Speaker 7 Yeah. So... God. I feel like I'm back at b 25. So in a super nutshell, I I buried money in the ground unbeknownst to myself that I was creating a generative artwork using dirt and moisture and time to create literal, unspendable, filthy fiat builds. And I'm not doing the story justice. I'll plug filthyfiat.money. You can read the whole backstory or DM me, and I'll tell you. So I got these bills, and what I what I did was I wanted to, you know, take the US flag and create it out of this filthy fiat because pretty much all the power of The United States is based on the power of the US dollar. Right? So I I built this flag, and the flag started evolving over time where it was it was a flag that would regenerate every thirty seconds.
So you'd get a, you know, different effects as you'll see on the screen. But then on, each hour, the orange stripe changes. So it looks like you're in the West Coast. So you have, noon as your time zone. So it's up at the top. Then every hour, it'll come down to remind people that it's always time for Bitcoin, keep stacking stats. And on top of that, there's a calendar coded into it so that on key dates for Bitcoin history and, US dollar history, special effects and images will show up on the screen for those days.
Steven Miller Now, Blue, before we take it to Gerard... Because, Gerard, I am setting you up. I want... I wanna hear what you think of this because there's some interesting, like, code variation that's going on behind the scenes with this, obviously, from what Colby just explained. But, Blue, why were you taken with this piece? Because I'm gonna put you on the spot. You and I both were competing bidders on this, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on it, why it appealed to you.
Blutoshi Well... Yeah. I mean, the... And the more I hear Colby talk... Because it's funny. Like, you interviewed him. I was actually the guy behind the camera there to make sure the live feed was going. But I I loved it from the moment I saw it. I love the one orange stripe. I love the dirty money that... And now that I know that Colby, this wasn't even the intention. He had just, for however long ago, buried this money. I love it. It's a one to one piece, and it's, an inscription as well. To me, I know some people, say, like, they want one or the other. For me, it's like, no. Both, especially when they're, like, combined like this, and it and it just makes sense. I got to see... You know, we spent a lot of time there. We were around Colby pretty much a lot of the time.
So I got to see it firsthand in the space. Like like, Colby says, like, oh my god. I feel like I'm there standing up for, you know, an hour six or whatever. But I just absolutely love this. So I was... I think I was the very first bidder, but I think I've already put six bids on it. And, Colby, just so you know, Steven said... He goes, Blue, yesterday, he goes, don't put your next bid in yet. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, I want I wanna bid before you. So so I waited for Steven, and it took him an extra, like, three hours. I was like, let's go, buddy. So I'm keeping a close eye on this
Steven Miller one.... Takes time to plan a perfect stream, dude. Get off my case.
Blutoshi Yeah. And and a perfect stream you you have planned. I may or may not, while Steven was just talking, setting up this piece, have just bid on it again, but it appears that the the megalith site might be... I I see a very spinny octagonal wheel, so I might have to try again. But what do we have? We we have, like, an hour... Hold these doesn't come up until the next hour. Right? So I believe we have, like, an hour forty five. Right?
Speaker 7 Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for all the bids, you guys. I mean, that's that's too kind. Appreciate it.
Steven Miller Yeah. No. We we always key in with the artist whose work just really speaks to us. Again, if you're... If the artwork speaks to you, always do try and put a bid in if you can. In my case, I'm bidding over on both of these sites right now, so there's that. I wanted to throw it to Gerard though to get his impressions because again, Gerard, you have a very unique perspective on the art market at large. Obviously, this is taking something very physical, making it digital, using some code aspect. But what do you think about this, instantiation for Kaldi as well? I'd love to get your thoughts.
Speaker 9 Well, I was gonna say that first, I'm a big fan of, everything that plays with, with Fiat. And, actually, this is com... Something completely new. You know, I explained not only with The US banner, but what I like about it is also the variations. Why? Because it makes me think of how a souvenir can change in your mind. You know? One week after something happens, you have an image of it, and one year, it completely changed. And here, the subtle changes on the artwork reminds me on this. It's like, okay. We had an idea about Fiat or they make us think about, you know, somehow of Fiat, and suddenly, it completely changes. Oh, the the central bank decision or orientation completely changes. That's how I... You know, that... That's that's at least the the feeling that I get from this artwork.
And and I like it because not a lot of people that kind of work on the memory of of of
Speaker 9 And I think that we should think a lot more about this kind of similar things, how, you know, people forget about what happened during COVID, for example, of what happened during this war. Everything changes a lot, and and that's that's at least what it makes me think about it. So I don't know if it was called this intention at all, but these sort of variations, it makes me think of this. So I like it.
Speaker 7 Thank you. Yeah. And I I... This whole this whole series is about education. I mean, it's it's it's an education about my own, you know, inability to keep money spendable. And, yeah, I think the more people that learn about this... And like you said, like, history is important, and, history doesn't always repeat, but it rhymes. And I think that, you know, we... The more we can learn about what has happened, we can kinda look ahead to the future and and try to help those things from, you know, happening all over again. So thank you. I appreciate it. Well,
Blutoshi thank do have an update. The the highest bid is now over 0.02. It is 0.0201. It's funny how that stuff happens while we're live on the show.
Steven Miller Yeah. I I just wanna shout out to that I just wanna shout out to that bidder real quick. You're a real bastard for taking the high bid away from Blue. Just saying. The the the truth is there's a lot of incredible work here, and I'd I'd give all of the props in the world to Koldy. But, Koldy, I don't mean to bring up too much trauma of putting you right back on your feet at the expo and talking about the work again. So I'm gonna pivot over so we can work through the rest of these auction pieces for a second. So cool the feet, put them on ice, text Rafael, let him know that, you know, you need some ice. But I wanna I wanna turn the attention to these last two pieces that you're auctioning over with Vivid right now, Gerard.
Again, all of this is available over on vivid.gallery. At least I'm I'm 99% positive that's still the site. But on vivid.gallery, the next piece that you guys are auctioning is from big friend of the show, Cyberseed. He's called Hangover. Tell us about it.
Speaker 9 Oh, man. I'm I'm super happy that Cyberseed decided to to release his first one of one with us. It's it's an honor, seriously, and we've been talking a lot about it. And, he wanted to do something for the whiskey tasting. And, when he came up with this, I was like, okay. Perfect. Thank you so much, first of all, because this is perfect. And I directly thought, thank god that you included two glasses in there. Because the first draft from this piece that I saw, it had no glasses. And, actually, I think it changes everything, and it gives a lot of meaning to this to this artwork. Makes me think of this, you know, lyrics from Billy Joel, Piano Man, where he said, they they are sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone. And these two glasses really reminds me of that lyric.
And, and what I like about this piece is actually makes me think about this. You know? It makes you think about these very special moments that you can share with a with a friend or, with somebody that you like, and and it just feels like time stops for a bit. Just like what we experienced during the whiskey tasting or what we experienced with you, Steven, when you brought these these cigars. Just the moment in time where you forget about everything and you just enjoy, and and I think it really captures that moment. Or at least that's that's the feeling that I'm getting from it. And I know that Cybersea was also thinking a lot about this because he's also a great whiskey enjoyer. He he was expecting that whiskey tasting in in Las Vegas for a long time.
So, yeah, I I think that that the collector that's gonna take this one will also be thinking about these moments that we all had, you know, in in life, sharing with a friend, and that become rarer and rarer nowadays.
Steven Miller Yeah. No question there. Blue, what were your impressions on this one? Because this was... I mean, look. Yes. When I see hangover, my brain immediately turns to, you know, the hangover, the movie, and all of the jokes that I've since played out in different group chats. Big shout out to Roger Dickerman and Ben Meadows who we're gonna hear from pretty soon here. I was joking with them that I was trapped on the roof of the ARIA, and I needed help getting back down. But I wanna throw it to you and see what your thoughts are on hangover before we go into this final piece.
Blutoshi Yeah. I mean, I love this one. In fact, I was ignoring what you guys were just talking about because I was trying to bid there, and Gerard did... Instead I have to do it in 50 k sad increments. I mean, cyber c to me is... He's one of my favorite artists in the space. He's got... I love the... What's the last collection? It's just the tip of my mind with the Tron based one. Yeah. Enigma. I mean, just so cool. And I love that... I I I love the gamification and stuff, and not the cheesy Disney gamification, but real cool stuff where, like, if you're holding, you know, an on chain monkey or if you have Deus Ex's first piece of his collection, the the piece changes.
Because only on on chain art can you do that where you can inevitably change forever what the art actually looks like based on certain attributes that you may hold or or certain endpoints of the blockchain. But I love this one. Like, Cybersea is awesome. In fact, when... At inscribing when I did... I got the bagpiper because, you know, I did comedy in my twenties, and the one thing that I remember from those past life is that you gotta make big entrances and exits. So the bagpiper was great, but Cyberseas camera guys basically filmed the whole thing. So that with vivid scotch tasting and the fact that this is so apropos to that awesome intimate, two or three hours of scotch box in the in the the scotch tasting, like, this one resonates with me a lot. I love it. It's got a little princess Leia vibes.
Like, are you there, Obi Wan Kenobi? You're my only hope, you know, as r two The kinda phases out.
Steven Miller Is his only hope. That's too good.
Blutoshi Yeah. The bottle is your only hope and the two empty glasses. So I definitely love this one. I will definitely be bidding on this one as soon as I figure out why it's telling me I have to bid in 50,000 set increments. I don't know what that number is, Gerard, but, just tell me what it is above the the floor there, and I will I will bid on it. But,
Speaker 9 yes. Yeah. I think I think the setup is 50, yeah, 50 k stats. I don't know exactly. I think that was from the last auction. To be honest, with all the the traveling from Las Vegas and all the setup that we have to do to change the last minute, we haven't thought a lot about it. But but, yeah, I think that's the setup from now, 50 k. Maybe we're gonna lower it a little bit. I I just realized it now
Blutoshi to be honest. But, guys, I mean But what I'm saying is I don't I don't know how to do the math of point... I'm... I only think in fractions of Bitcoin. So point o o one eight Bitcoin plus 50,000 sats to me is like adding apples and then refrigerators.
Blutoshi That's okay. Thank you. I'll be back. And and a huge a huge
Steven Miller shout out at the same time goes to somebody you're gonna hear from in a little bit. Our buddy, Ben Meadows, just threw a bid in on it as well. Much love much love to you, Ben, for supporting the auction there live. But, Colby, I wanna turn to you for two more seconds here on this piece because, again, you're just now starting to dabble into incorporating p five in your own work. And this is another really interesting, like, light and particle sorting experiment. And I know that a lot of what you're starting to dabble into is a lot more color influences and trying to build in, you know, color variation in your own work. Now that you're seeing p five through that personal lens, what do you start to settle with when you look at something like this?
Speaker 7 Yeah. You know, I mean, whenever, obviously, any of us learn a new tool, you work with what you know and then you expand. So, you know, just getting into p five by myself to code is is fantastic. And, you know, I'm working with flat planes and three d depth, things that I understand and have used. And then once you realize that things don't have to be solid or things don't have to be image based. Right? Like, all those... All these, like, preconceived notions of of what I have enjoyed making up to this point, it all goes out the window, and it's, like, actually quite freeing. You know, I've I've been doing some... Just some wild stuff in my own mind, but, you know, it's fun to see how everybody digest this stuff differently. I used to do three d light painting, and so I was basically...
Had a three d camera and I would draw shapes. And so in my mind, I can reference that as an experience that's somewhat, you know, using light and mass to create objects. This looks beautiful, first of all. Again, it's a piece of art that I wanna continue staring at, which not... Doesn't happen a lot. So wonderful job. And I think that we... We're all learning so much from each other that, you know, now that, you know, you see these things going, I've I've been doing weird experiments with p five, and it it create... These new rabbit holes. Right? These are never ends. Like, if if you can think of something, then you can make it now. And that hasn't always been the case. So that's fascinating. I I just love all the works that you're showing, and, it's just a great great collection.
Steven Miller It's funny because you you literally texted me last night that, you know, art art lives on it. It's it's a forever process, and you're absolutely right. You know, from what you were just saying to even last night, it's fascinating to watch, but we need to get into this last piece in in the auction here, which to me is a really special one because Nathan and I go back a good little ways now, to when he debuted OZ on, on Bitcoin. But this is a final special edition, and Kaldi, Blue, I have to imagine you guys have been around Vegas quite a little bit at this point in your respective lives. I'm curious if you're gonna catch on to the exact reference that I immediately think of in Vegas from this respective work. But, Gerard, tell us a little bit about what Nathan Cornas has brought us here.
Speaker 9 Man, first of all, when when you showed me this reference, I was like, okay. This is exactly this is exactly it. And and I think that Nathan did a great job on this special edition because we we are working on on this collection. We are finalizing the the creation and and some little details on the algorithm and on how to display and well, for the menu and everything for the collector. And I and I asked him, you know, we're going to Las Vegas. Don't you think you can do a special edition, for for Las Vegas? And, he told me, man, I love Las Vegas. I know a lot about it. I'm just gonna make something exactly like Las Vegas. And, and I have to say that I was impressed by how this piece resonated with me after my stay in Vegas.
First, the colors, like this neon texture from the beginning. It's just amazing. It really reminds me, you know, when I was walking, in the middle of the casinos. It was perfect. But, also, it really plays perfectly well with the vibe of Las Vegas. Like, everything under control. It's so funny because in Vegas, it's this complete chaos that, at the same time, it's kind of controlled. You know? They they they had they have this maze in the hotels where, you can walk for fifteen minutes and, think that you are lost, but at the end, you arrive at your destination. So it's a kind of controlled chaos that is exactly what Nathan wanted to show with this piece. Here you have the animated version, but you actually can play with it on the you know, you you could just press you you can click on it and you can play with it.
So it's actually the collector that decides the shape and the form that the final artwork is taking. And after spending one week in Las Vegas for my first time, it felt the same way. You know? I'm trying to get the control of my life there, but it's actually you know, the the city eats you, and, it never stops, working, never stops moving. And, that is the exact same feeling that I'm getting from this artwork. All these neons are just, you know, getting down. Okay. It seems like you're gonna have some rest, but boom. They pop on you once again in another form, and it's this infinite loop of sensations that this city gives you. So, yeah, great work to to Nathan. Actually, it's a it's a great pleasure working with him. It's our first time doing something together.
And I can say that really see doing some big things with him and and Vivid. So so, yeah, a big shout out to him. I hope that you like the piece, guys. To me, it's amazing.
Steven Miller Yeah. There's certainly a bright future ahead there. But, gentlemen, I'm curious if you thought of, what I immediately did. Blue, did you even, yeah. Colby, I'll go to you first. Did you did you catch a reference there?
Speaker 7 Is it the entrance is it Bellagio?
Speaker 7 Is it Bellagio Entrance Hall? Yeah. I I've definitely never stayed there. But on some some some drunken walks, we we got to see that magic. So that that's the first thing that came to mind. And also the Chihuly glass, is that is that the same
Steven Miller That's exact that's exactly who it is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that's Yeah. I'm
Blutoshi glad you didn't ask me first because Colby just got, like, a 100% of the quiz. I'd be like, they're pretty bright colors like Vegas. I don't know.
Steven Miller You're like, I remember walking the strip at night once in my life. Yeah. No. It's it's really really cool watching how this thing unfolds. And again, you guys have such an incredible curation within this auction. I need to make sure that I I bring it back around to that here so that people can know where to find it. Of course, that's up on vivid.gallery. There's a big, button in the upper left hand corner of your screen that'll populate, and you've got, what is that, Gerard? Is that, is that two days or is it two weeks?
Speaker 9 No. It's two days. So, actually, it was supposed to end tomorrow, but we got this great opportunity to showcase the the auction pieces to to some very good collectors that are coming to to Lisbon. And they told me, oh, no, man. Seriously, you want to do these guided tours? Like, NFC is organizing these guided tours with collectors. So we're like, okay. Let's add two more days until the end of of the convention. So, yeah, it's gonna end on the sixth. So, yeah, one one and a half hours from now. So for, like, 1PM east for you guys, I guess. Yeah. Something like this.
Blutoshi Friday the sixth. Yeah. I'm I'm writing the note.
Speaker 9 Yeah. It's awesome. Blue is taking notes to be done the last moment. I know you, Blue. I know how much formal you get out from these shows.
Blutoshi Yeah. Colby, I don't know if you know. I'm I'm the knucklehead. Like, I'll interview someone. So I interviewed Gerard when I first met him with Phenomena. What was that? Shade of to Eternal Tides. I interviewed the guys who were talking about it, and then I like, the bid was ending, like, at the end of the show, and I'm like, I have to have this piece. Like, I I'm the only guy who interviews people and then convinces himself to buy the pizza over his audience. So I don't know if that's a good long term business model, but, you know, it works for an art collection, I guess.
Steven Miller Yeah. No. It's it's a bold strategy to say the least. But, but, Colby, I do wanna turn back to you for two seconds because there were other pieces that you were auctioning while you were at the show. Are they still running right now, or did was did I see that they concluded yesterday? Because I'm just time is relative. Right?
Speaker 7 They concluded as far as I know. I've been running around like crazy, but I believe those concluded. And it was awesome. I got some you know, it's the first time so so the backup, just say what they are, I I created it's the second one I've ever done. It's a three d magnetic movable portrait of Jack Dorsey. And I've been developing this this process and idea for a couple years now. And it's the first time that I've been able to show it in a public setting. It was it was at Christie's in their gallery, but it wasn't like, I wasn't there with it to, like, talk and move it all around. So it was fascinating to kind of show people that this this takes that gallery or museum method of do not touch the art, the art is sacred, stay away, and this invites the collector or in a museum, you could have, like, a docent there or somebody to, like, move the piece around and have it be a living artwork.
And it's fun because, you know, the kids love it instantly. Right? They're like, oh my god. I can I can play with the art? And adults, you know, I got a lot of lot of people saying it reminded them of, like, mister potato head when they were kids, where you could move all the pieces around and and make the make the face your own. And that's the point. Right? It's just invite people to be a part of the art experience. And I was taking photos of all the different configurations, and those will be tokenized. So there will be a provenance token that shows, you know, all the different place, all the different, configurations. When a collector gets it, they will add to it. Right?
And then there would be this living document that will live on so that as time goes by, it's not just so and so owned it for a decade and they sold it to this guy, and you don't really know what happens to the thing. Now you can, like, literally see it in all its in all its weirdness. Right? And and I was having a blast, like, kind of challenging people to pick a a configuration. And you would think that would be something someone would just, like some people would just jump in and say that and that. Some people were stuck to, like, the confines of the eyes need to go where the eyes go. And, like, well, the mouth can't be above the nose. You know? Like, people were, like, really, like, their souls were, like, searching for things.
And that was the exact feedback I was hoping for because they would come up with something and they would look at me like, is that okay? And I you know, I'm very friendly guy. Was like, yeah. Like, literally anything you say is the new layout. Like, the whole the whole board is magnetic. I picked we put the hair underneath, and all of sudden, it looked like he had a a a beard. Right? It was fucking wonderful. So that that was mission accomplished, was was to to invite people in and show them a different way of kind of how I distilled my years of pushing pixels in digital world. You know, async pioneered this idea of composable movable layers, and I wanted to bring that thought into the physical realm.
Steven Miller Yeah. It's it's incredible work what you've done with decentralized, and it's very different. I think we're starting to see evolutions to it as well. The thing that I loved the most about it, seeing it in person, it's not my first time seeing in person, but it it never gets old is probably the best way that I can say it is you immediately started just tipping the eyes. Right? And it all of a sudden brings in brand new emotion to the individual that you're portraying, and that's just wild to me. I mean, like, literally, just taking the eyes and throwing them slightly off axis. Right? It it just adds in this, like, different emotion to it. So I I love it. I really hope that more people can, have some opportunities to see it in person, interact with it, at the very least allow you to show them how to move the magnets around, because you get you've done a great job prototyping that and and bringing that into reality.
I still remember when you showed showed me, like, the earliest prototype of it on our very first time, like, jumping onto a call together, it still blew my mind. But, there's there's a bright future ahead here, and I'm excited to see how you, bridge p five into it as well. But you were right. It it was concluded. So very least, people now have a little bit of exposure to decentralized, but can play around with filthy fiat as well. I don't know if you can hear my dog. He's a huge decentralized fan. But, Blue, what final questions do you have for these two gentlemen before we head into our our final segment leaning all the way into culture on Bitcoin?
Blutoshi Oh, wow. I mean, yeah, I guess I would ask you both. I mean, not to rest on our laurels here because we had such a long week. Gerard decided to ship himself in a container to Lisbon directly for Vegas, which sounds very tiring and long to me, but have fun with that while the rest of us catch up with sleep. But, you know, I'd ask Colby then Gerard, like, you know, when you interact with with your collectors and and b 25 in the greater Bitcoin ecosystem, Colby, know you got really inspired talking to different people. Like, has that planted the seeds for what you're working on next?
Speaker 7 Yeah. It it's interesting because I had, like, two completely separate thoughts that I was conveying to people. So it was kind of like, let's talk about this one. Alright. Stop everything. Change and reset. Let's talk about this one. Like, two completely, you know, different thoughts. And I think that my focus, you know, especially for all of this year and leading into next year, is heavily focused on these two ideas. Filthy Fiat, is a a a gigantic project with many layers and, different opportunities that are going to allow people no matter where they wanna be part of the ecosystem to find a spot that they call their own and build community. And, you know, the goal again is to educate more and more people about the fragility and impermanence of fiat and how Bitcoin, fixes that. Somebody, forget who it was, had a wonderful little tag tagline.
They said that Bitcoin is disease free, And I thought that was just perfectly poignant. Right? These bills, they're all moldy and toxic because of all the shit that was on. It wasn't just the dirt. It was the grossness that's on every single bill. Lots
Speaker 7 Every everything. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm surprised I didn't get, like, a contact high from from just the airborne Coke. And then, you know, on the decentralized side of things, I have some gigantic things in the in the works that will be coming out in '26 that are are magnetic. You guys got to see the refrigerator magnet version of the decentralized, which, you know, if you're not a one of one collector, of the Jack Dorsey, you can get a six by nine, version that goes on your refrigerator with three d, spacers. And you can you can have, you know, just as much fun, and you can share with the family.
Steven Miller Yeah. I know. I'm I'm personally pumped as all hell to get my hands on one of those. I I already laid down a very, a dedicated dibs on 82. So, Rafael, I'm coming at you for fulfillment on that one, my guy. But it's a really it's a really fun
Speaker 7 I wanna give a shout out to Raf. He he's he's through and through helping many of my crazy dreams become reality. So he's a a great teammate and friend, and I'm glad you guys got to hang out with him too. He's just he's a one of a kind. He's his own one of a
Blutoshi He was a great dude, and he was super helpful to us as we had all these wires and computers and cameras all over the place, so he was awesome.
Steven Miller Well, guys, it was a true pleasure having you guys on and talk a little bit about the auctions, talk a little bit about the work. Obviously, you guys know you're more than welcome back on my show anytime. I'm sure that Blue would be more than willing to host you, you know, when he's got time. I know he's a very busy man. But you can, of course, connect with this guy right here. He's at Coldy pretty much everywhere on the Internet. And then that guy where is he? Damn it. My hands. There it is. That guy over there is Gerard. You can catch him at C P T N Salami. Is that right?
Speaker 9 Hey. Because you can say it. It's okay now, but they have to follow interesting. Vivid is more interesting than myself. I'm not an influencer.
Steven Miller This is true. He's not interested. To disagree, but we'll be on the the Vivid show probably in another week or so once you're back home from Lisbon and rested. Looking forward to that. Hopefully, we can drag Blue in for one of those one of these days. But, guys, it's an it's been an absolute pleasure getting the chance to be able to chop it up with you for a bit today.
Speaker 9 Thank you so much, guys. I'm gonna finish setting this up. And, well, thank you for the invitation. See you soon. Bye bye.
Steven Miller We'll see you soon. See you, guys. Colby, it's been real, man.
Speaker 7 Thanks as always. Keep it up. You guys are crushing, and it's fun to see you guys grow and thrive and happy to be a small part of, of the experience.
Steven Miller Always a pleasure to have you on, my guy. Well, let's talk a little bit more from here, Blue. It I feel like we're still just getting started. And, of course, we're going overtime per usual, but I am not stopping until we get into our next feature, which is with at least two of the three next guests. Hopefully, we get the third one here, but we've got some absolute legends in the mix. I'm gonna let you set the table for them. Why don't you introduce our next set of guests, namely Ben Meadows and Donnie, and then I'll intro Violetto, if she's able to join us.
Blutoshi Oh, man. You make this so easy for me. These are like it's funny because every time you go to a conference, you kinda make you add to your kinda inner circle of, BFFs. So, you know, I'll start with Donnie. Like, I loved hanging out with Colby, and I loved, the first group with, the two. Who who do we have? We had sorry. We had Nick and Nick. I'm like, I know they have the same name, but, you know, to me, now we're going to culture, and this is where I like to spend a lot of time. I love the art. I love everything. But culture is where you know what this is, Steve? Remember when I was complaining the whole time? I'm like, come do we have to shoot another video? And I'm like, I just wanna go to the pool.
And we went to the swimming pool, and guess who was there? It was Donnie and his girlfriend and Chip and his wife. And it was like, we finally got to just, like, cool down from standing up. And to me, that's what culture, Bitcoin is. So Donnie needs no introduction, but Donnie is is I've pulled a bunch of people lately. I don't know why I do this. I just get bored. But I'm like, who's the funniest person in the space? And I know what your answer was, and and it's Donnie. Like, Donnie's he is like, if I think of the the character of of keeping ordinals weird and keeping this this whole ecosystem weird in a good weird in a the only the best way, it's Donnie. So when I first saw Donnie at the inscribing VIP dinner, I sat down with a bunch of people, and Chip was there, and Snoop was there.
And so, obviously, like, I knew it was Donnie, and he looks at me. He goes, Blue. I'm like, hey. He goes, it's me, Donnie. And I'm like, yeah. I know. And he goes, with a wig. I'm like and once he said it was Donnie, I already knew it was Donnie, but then he's like, with the way and and the wig he had was just priceless. So Donnie is is one of the funniest guys I know. Ben, oh my god. I could go on for hours about Ben and and his wife, but Ben, I had a long heart to heart with him. I had a long heart to heart with his wife. Blue's got a lot of crazy stuff going on just in in his in his greater life orbit. And these two are some of the most down to earth and smart, mind you, people that I met.
So not not only do we get first of we take, like, a cab home with them from somewhere. We started chatting then, but then we got to spend that whole last night together with your cigar aficionado smoking those. I got to spend a ton of time with Ben learning about kinda where he came from and and the OG that he is, obviously, in the East space. But just as as, like, a futurist and a thinker in this space, like, the world needs and certainly, our industry with so much grift out there needs, like, honest, like, people who are just deep philosophical thinkers in the space. And, oh, by the way, he can code and he Build too. And his wife, Lauren, I'll say no more, but she is, just amazing, and, it was so nice to get to spend time with both of them.
So, thank you for you you make it so easy. You, like, set me up with the people that I connected the most with there. It's almost like this is my, coming home party. Like, Randall, this is your life, and now you're gonna die. So Well, let's let's
Steven Miller let's send it over to them. We've got Ben Meadows and Donnie without wig. How are you guys doing? I hope you're having yourselves a good morning. Feel free to unmute.
Blutoshi That's what Donnie looks like? Oh, yikes. Okay. Cool. Welcome, Donnie. Can you can
Steven Miller you hear us first, I guess? Mic check. Right?
Steven Miller hear Ben, and Donnie is still muted.
Blutoshi No. But Donnie is just doing pantomime right now. Yeah. Donnie, we we don't have you no. There you go,
Steven Miller Donnie. Donnie Well, you had done mute me. Right? Maybe. I don't know. Oh, there you It's not I'm new here. I don't know anything.
Speaker 4 I've never done this before. So when I introduced myself as Donnie, and I was like, it's Donnie
Speaker 4 to before, I was like, it's it's Donnie. And they were like, nice to meet you, Donnie. He's like a friend of mine, someone I know. So I I had like, I was forced into it. I had to do it. I wasn't just making it a bit. The bit was its own thing.
Blutoshi I I as a it works as not a bit and a bit, but that guy's still probably like, yeah. I I know I know Donnie Clutterbuck. And then this other guy died. It looks like his crazy, like, creepy southern cousin, but It was wild. You know, they they were both interesting in their own ways. Yeah.
Steven Miller get used to it. Thank thank goodness for that because I still wanna be able to have, like, the brother Donnie moment where it's just like Donnie with wig, Donnie without wig, Donnie with wig, Donnie without wig. But It's the Brady Bunch episode that
Blutoshi he has the two sorry. I got it. He is the Brady Bunch episode where there's the Peter has the date both in the living room and in the den, and he's changing his outfit. And it's it's just it's just a mad caper. So now now that's what I feel I could pull
Speaker 4 that off with the wig. Yeah.
Blutoshi Pork chops and applesauce.
Steven Miller But but let's let's throw it to Ben as well. Ben, welcome on. I see that from your background, you may still be in Vegas, but I know you're not.
Ben No. I took that's actually a photo I took and, anyway, threw it as a background because I didn't want the stock Apple background. You know? So and I'm glad to know that I'm speaking about culture. I was like, I wonder what I'm speaking about. And, you know, sometimes I question if I have culture, so I guess if I'm speaking about it, you know, may maybe. We'll see. So but, no, glad glad to be here, Blue. It was awesome to meet you. We spoke till, what, 01:00 in the morning, I think, both both nights and, you know, with too many people in the truck one night on the way back to the hotel. So, yeah, it was it was a great time.
Blutoshi Including a guy in your in the back of the the flatbed riding coffin. I'm like, oh, that's not a good look, but it was only, like, a twenty minute drive, so it was fine.
Ben I I don't know what you're talking about.
Blutoshi No. No. No. No. No. I was driving. It was fine. And my Miata.
Steven Miller Oh, god. That's too good. Well, Blue, I consider you one of the, you know, more culture bound individuals in the space. You're constantly studying the way that Bitcoin culture is evolving. So I'm actually gonna let you Okay. I'm gonna let you have a lot of fun here and take the driver's seat. I'm gonna move from point guard to center here and just kinda immediately start rebounding.
Blutoshi So okay. Well, now if if you're gonna play center, then I I gotta dish to you and you gotta dish back out because that's what a good team does. Now Europeans are are really infiltrating basketball. So, yeah, I'll start with you, Donnie. Like, you know, you've been doing these conferences for a while. You've been just a cornerstone, certainly, the ordinal space since the beginning. Like, what and you had a great post the other day. And then, of course, my response to your post is like, Donnie, come on, the show Wednesday. And and so Donnie and I are gonna talk in more detail tomorrow, but you had a lot of great insights while I was still sleeping and trying to just, like, recuperate from the whole long week, of fun. But you you had a lot of great observations about just b 25 inscribing kind of like we we can all kinda see this direction things are heading in.
Like, what are your thoughts right now kinda about the whole space and kinda where we all kinda fit in this microcosm?
Speaker 4 I I'm not I'm not a recent Bitcoiner. Like, '20 early twenty twenty three is when I took a a strong interest in Bitcoin. I thought I knew what Bitcoin was, or I thought it just it was just like the ocean. You know, you walk by the ocean, you look at the beach, and you're like, well, it's still there. You move on, you, like, go to a bar or something because you don't realize, like, what's under the water. And for, you know, like, six years probably, I was interested in, like, high transaction speed, complicated proof of stake methods, and applications like decentralized identity and decentralized finance. Like, those were my my wheelhouse. That's what I really liked. And I was really into the world of Ethereum layer two roll ups for some reason. I don't really know why.
Like, I couldn't tell you why at this point, but at the time, it felt like the future. And, you know, my my conference attendance prior to that was all Ethereum stuff and, like, permissionless and ETH Denver and things like that. So I'm really familiar with what those look like. My first Bitcoin conference was in Amsterdam of '20 or 2023 in Amsterdam. And I noticed that the conference was just, like, no bullshit. There was people on stage talking like, Paul Swark was on stage talking about BIP 300 or drive chains, and people were talking about Lightning and what Lightning can be used for, why it's there to scale layer one. People were talking about layer one, essentially. And just and I'm new. This is, like, two and a half years for me. That conference feels like a different entire ecosystem or environment than every conference I've attended after it, where it's becoming more and more like East Denver.
And by that, I mean, mostly things that have nothing to do with layer one at all. And this conference was where it was the loudest to me, where everything was about, like, a I saw the the sign dollar sign USD on, like if I had to assign a percentage, like, 10% of booths. And there was, like, a dude walking around in an astronaut costume with, like, a ticker on the back of it. And there's nothing wrong with any of this stuff, but it it indicates that something very dramatic is shifting in the Bitcoin ecosystem. And I think that a large part of the negative response to the Ordinals ecosystem is that everyone sees us as that astronaut guy with a ticker on his back. And that's just not true. I mean, yeah, there are people like that. There's, like, meme coins on Bitcoin that people are hucking all the time.
There's the Runes Protocol, BRCs. I think there's different use cases for those alkanes too that are not just meme coin hucking, but, like, nobody sees that. Nobody sees the art that we're throwing on chain that is actually art. So if there's anything I took away from this conversation, it's that the large bonds to ordinals is misdirected because there's so much other stuff that we showed up alongside that we're getting bundled in with. And my biggest takeaway was that ordinals was the only the single only layer one thing on the showroom floor, which I found then maybe I'm I'm being hyperbolic maybe. It there was a really low percentage of things on that showroom floor this year at the conference that had anything to do with layer one Bitcoin aside from maybe rolling up to it or settling eventually on it or something like that.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but all of the negative viewpoints about it, about ordinals, I think are stemmed from the existence of that. Because if anything, ordinals, like, you can't interact with it on a layer two, mostly, are forced to be the Bitcoin. You have to download a wallet. You have to understand UTXO management. I know what Spero wallet is only because of trying not to lose Ordinals, and now I'm completely obsessed with Bitcoin. And I have, like, 30 terahash of home miners under my bed at home. I feel like I'm a power user of Bitcoin, and it's not because I was onboarded via layer twos and meme coins. It was because I was onboarded by art and the ordinals protocol. So I don't know. I feel like it's very misrepresented, and I think a lot of people had their minds changed a little bit, especially considering that everything was so USD layer two custodial solution focused at the conference.
Anybody who wandered into the art tent was like, wait. It's kinda cool.
Steven Miller It was it was a really fast and furious introduction for those individuals. But just before we throw it back to you, Blue, I would be remiss if I did not give a proper introduction where introduction is due. We were also just joined by Violetta Zeroni. Very, very, very excited to have her with us. She is the most, like, fabulous singer within our space and is bringing music to Bitcoin. So, Violetta, thank you so much for being here with us today. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Sorry I'm late. I was just wrapping up my own recap space. So yeah.
Steven Miller It's all it's it's all good. We're all we we've all got our our own recaps going today, so it's all good. But we're doing just a little bit of around the horn right now, talking a little bit of culture on Bitcoin, seeing what our our larger takeaways were as a group off the rest of the week because there's a lot of different points to digest, whether you're talking art, you're talking about parties, you're talking about l twos. There was something for everybody there. But, Blue, I'll toss it back on over to you. I just wanted to make sure that we gave Violetta her her kudos.
Blutoshi No. Absolutely. Welcome, Violetta. So, Ben so so excited to ask you a question. So Ben comes from obviously, you're an OG in the ETH space. Some of your stories are just awesome. Like, and I won't go to full detail, but just the whole trust thing with an OG group of of Eth folks. Like,
Blutoshi I met you over the course of a week, like, the the same and your wife, the same reoccurring things happen over and over. It's like trust, like, finding that group authenticity, like and and you just ooze that in every way. So you're huge in the e space. You know, you're an excellent coder on all fronts. You're an artist. You're a collector. You're you're definitely like a Renaissance man here. A lot of Eth people have not come over to our space, and I thought it was really interesting. When you and I were smoking cigars, I won't get the words exactly right, but I was like, you know, kinda like, why? What brings you here in ordinals? And to me, it felt like you were talking about, like, it was still grassroots and the authenticity. So as well, so many eth folks haven't come over, and, obviously, there's all the stupid sparring that's going on like, our chain's better.
Our chain's better. You know? And I know, Steven, you're you're for on chain art regardless, and so am I. You know? And, Ben, I know you are too. What brought you over to ordinals, and what are your thoughts being such a, kinda multichain wide thinker on the whole crypto, space?
Ben So I'll give you a long answer, which, I'll try not to make it too long. But, you know, I do think there is value in ETH and in Bitcoin. Right? I mean, you know, you've got the old Bitcoin saying about it's the test net, but there's still a lot of good people doing good things. I was on a public goods call this morning on the ETH side of things. Now now I'll give you the long answer. So I started with Bitcoin before it did anything other than exchange value. Right? I mean, it's kind of the, you know, pet rock example. Like, you could mine it. You could store it. You know, unfortunately, I looked at some financial documents and saw where I sold some of $400 and thought that was amazing. And that lack of things to do on Bitcoin was why I went over to Ethereum
Ben point. Right? When it came out and there was this promise of a world computer and, you know, the idea that it had smart contracts and was turned complete. And like Donnie mentioned, you know, you could do you could, well, try and figure out decentralized identity, right, or decentralized finance or all these great aspirational ideas. Right? And then I remember when Ordinals first came out. You know? It was I think the first time I inscribed on was 02/11/2023, and I like new things. Right? I like playing around with new things. And so this idea that Bitcoin could do something, right, other than just be a store value was exciting, and I wanted to play around with it. Now what I found interesting is somebody that's seen this space from, you know, sort of mine it and collect it post rock then yeah.
Or pet rock, then forget about it, go over to Ethereum. Now I'm back and, you know, I'm back to running a node, and I'm back to having some miners. But I also find that the culture exists that didn't really exist. Right? Before, it was like, take your seed phrase, bury it in the ground with your guns, and, you know, be ready for the end of the world. And now there actually is art and culture. Right? And and, you know, five years ago, maybe even eight years ago, there would have been nobody to thank for inviting me to the conference. Right? I wouldn't have said thank you to Gamma or Vivid or my friend Cybersea or Steven. Of that exist. Right? And so I think that was interesting. Right? The culture that does exist, but also how quickly it's changed in just a couple years.
Best example I can give of that is, you know, Donnie alluded to it. There were a lot of suit pointers there. Right? There were a lot of big businesses, custodial solutions. And one of the saddest things for me was I was really excited, to hear Ross Ulbrick speak. Right? I remember, Ross from a decade ago. And there were more people that wanted to hear Sailor, And you've probably seen the videos, at least on I saw them on Noster where, like, there's just a flood of people leaving after Sailor's done and not as many people coming in for although I thought Russ's message was way more powerful. Right? Instead of, hey. You can get rich like me. It was freedom and decentralization and unity, and that's what got me into the space in the first place. And Yep. You know, on Ethereum, that's what got me more interested than DeFi was art.
And I think the same is true of Bitcoin. Bitcoin. Right? Culture, art culture doesn't come from big companies making a lot of money. Right? Culture from comes from trying new things. Right? And, I mean, I got to speak with some guys that were trying new things. Right? Whether it was Snoop with Ordos or, other people, that's exciting. Right? Doing new things is exciting. You guys were just talking about the art, and Cyberseas doing new things, right, with particle physics. And COLI is doing new things with color theory. And,
Ben know, that's that's what's neat for me about it. So, anyway, that's my that's my short version of my long answer on on culture.
Blutoshi No. And it it's a great answer. And and one of the things I loved, and and I guess this goes out to all of you, when you first walk in the expo, I mean, Dennis Cook, Cook did such a great job with all the art. You know? And, obviously, you know, all of us here were were coming together on many things, but Ordinals is one of them. But what really struck me is that that the Bitcoin conference is really using the art. It's it's the social stickular. As as I've been telling Steve, and I've been I've been working on this metaphor, but it is literally the sticky marshmallow social glue of the Bitcoin Rice Krispie treat. I mean, let's be honest. It's the first thing you see when you walk in. And and like Ben said, like, think about all the spaces that are existing right now.
And every day, these guys are like, number's gonna go up. No. Dude, number's gonna go up more. No. Number's gonna go up. Like, you can only NGU for so long. Like, a Bitcoin's an all new high. I feel like we're all, like we, like, get the tiniest flag we have. We're like, yay. And then we go back to, like, the art and the culture. And and to Ben's point, I will say in my early days, like, 2015, 2016, '27, when the number went up alone, like, in my room, I'd be like, yeah. The number went up, and when it went down, I was like, boom. Like, me not having no money. You know? And now with art and the culture, we have so much to talk about and so many more, like, friends. And and these relationships to me just feel more real.
And as this gets more and more corporatized and more of the chiseled jawed, you know, fraternity bros, like, come in and and sell us their their custodial, you know, double signature wallets and stuff like that, like, this is where the culture is. And to me, that makes that just creates such a foundation to grow even more. So, Violetta, obviously, you're in the culture. You're into music. You did so much great stuff there. I mean, you sold your first song on ordinals for a Bitcoin plus. Right? I mean, it was huge, but you're also involved with the beat blocks, guys. Like, music on chain, you know, a lot of us have talked about as we're smoking cigars. Music on chain, like JPEGs, I don't wanna say it's easy, but it's certainly easier than music. Once you have something streaming like music and video, there goes your hockey stick of of file size exponentially.
So what impact did, b 25 and the whole inscribing and the whole vibe make on you?
Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, I I definitely agree with with most everything really that that you said. And with I guess it was really good to go and observe. I had a couple of things that were available during during the conference. One, open edition, and then the beat blocks, one of one that I created with Skrilla and Bunzee and Cain Mayfield. And we had that at the Bitcoin Dome. We had a presentation there, a demo, and it was incredible to see how many people were just fascinated by the idea. Like, they'd never connected the dots in their head. Oh, wow. Bitcoin music? What? Like, people were just like, what? Never thought about it, but then once see it, it makes so much sense in their head because people have, you know, faint knowledge of how messed up the music industry is. It's pretty much like the banking system, but, you know, but for artists, really.
And and also just the idea of being able to tie, like, something so accessible and something so loved, right, to Bitcoin. It's actually an amazing onboarding tool because music is something that you can force upon people pretty much. You cannot force any Bitcoin or to for them to watch a movie, but you can enforce people to just hear music. Right? So it's one of those things that we're still early with that. But I it was amazing to be able to demo the piece, and then I performed it, and then we sold it at auction there on that day. And it actually achieved a really great result for for being such a new, thing. And, you know, I think the guys have really figured out how to put different stems on chain and make what a lot of generative artists already do, right, with generative art and different variations, but with music.
So that's something I'm gonna continue to pay attention to and do, of course. But, yeah, I guess that was it. I I really went to observe and see where we were at considering considering all all the the big big adoption adoption that that we're we're having having from from the financial side of the world. But I completely agree with you guys. Like, not everyone necessarily cares about, you know, storing their Bitcoin or even investing. You know? Maybe in America, it's more of a substantial culture and something people are raised with, but I'm I'm from Italy. Like, you know, we have, you know, we have a pension that the state gives us, and no one really thinks of saving money or or even, like, you know, investing at all.
Blutoshi Only for for 92% tax rate.
Speaker 1 That's right. Yeah. And then we have that too. Right? So but everyone still goes to the movie. Everyone goes to museums. You know? Everyone listens to music. Everyone consumes art on a daily basis. So Right. Some of those countries, right, that don't really need the decentralized currency but are not invested in the investing mindset, like Europe, for example, I think art will be the most amazing tool to onboard them to Bitcoin, you know, coming from there. I I think So
Steven Miller So there's a there's a quick follow-up to that one, Violetta, and it goes back to what both Ben and Donnie were bringing up earlier. And it's like the way that we've almost had a hard reset, right, on the culture that a lot of us grew to, you know, appreciate and love with art and music and culture on ETH, but now seeing it take this new form and an opportunity to kind of really make it what we actually should have been making it back then. Do you feel do you get the feeling having released music over on Ethereum and now releasing on Bitcoin that we're seeing the right types of cultural shifts occur that will actually set us up for a much better or healthier long term future?
Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I do I do see that. One thing I've noticed recently that really, really pleasantly surprised me with my open edition, my song Poor Millionaire that's still live, I would say 90% of the people that bought it are my eth collectors, and that was their first ordinal. You know? And they didn't have a reason to go and buy an ordinal, I guess, until now. And a lot of them had never bought Bitcoin. You know? There are people that are just, how do I buy it? Right? And and that alone made me really happy, and it it's also a way for me to because I I truly aligned with the sense of Bitcoin. What it represents beyond the I'm gonna hold it and make a ton of money because it's gonna go up. You know? The what it is, the way it's built.
I I never I wouldn't be a artist if I really cared about money, to be honest about you guys. But, you know, for me
Speaker 1 Yeah. But, like, it's not
Blutoshi okay to make money and be an artist.
Speaker 1 I mean, that's the goal. Right? That's that's what you want, but it's not what you think about initially. Like, for me, was just like, whatever. I'll just make art. That's what I care about. But, yeah, like, Bitcoin has given me a chance to articulate more on my ethos of independence and decentralization as an artist because art is my currency. You know? And and and having my art on Bitcoin is giving me a chance to explain that to more people. So I do think that we are setting ourselves up for a better future for that as well. I think a lot of work needs to be done still to facilitate it, you know, more people to use it and more people to understand it. But, yeah, I think we're in a good good path.
Steven Miller Fingers crossed for that one. I I really do have high hope myself, but it's one of those things where, like, you you have hope that it's gonna be different, but then you recognize, okay. It takes a freaking village to make sure that it actually does become different. Right? We saw a lot of really negative behaviors and unsustainable behaviors formed around Ethereum. But now that that hard reset has landed on on the Bitcoin side of things, it's also starting to trickle over into Ethereum as well. So for a lot of those that are curious about it, I would just encourage coexistence and trying to learn about both and trying to have your own positive effect on the culture that we're trying to forge out here because it isn't easy. It really isn't.
But I I would love to turn it back over to Donnie for two quick seconds here because Donnie got really wrapped up in some interesting talks while we were at the conference, namely around mining. And now I know we're talking culture. I know mining doesn't typically rhyme with or even become synonymous with culture. But, Donnie, the way that your panels went down, especially that big mining master class that you and Chip were leading with the, you know, the folks over at OMB, did you feel like all of a sudden mining might actually be starting might start to become trendy on a certain level? Because it definitely started to give that type of vibe to me. And I'm just curious from an operator perspective if you felt similarly.
Speaker 4 You couldn't do it. You still you you kind of could do it. You can't do it, though, as it's just a normal human being. And I'll try to be brief about this. I know we're all I think everybody starts that way. I guess maybe I'm just not gonna be brief. In 2009 through 2000, I don't know, whenever, '12 or something like that, then quote me, could mine Bitcoin with a CPU, which is just the thing every computer has. It's what makes a computer a computer, and that was on purpose. That was so that everyone could mine it, and everybody could partake in it and decentralize it, secure it, and get Bitcoin. Because that was the only way to get Bitcoin, really, other than just buying it from a still is actually kind of the only real way to get Bitcoin because otherwise, have to go buy on a centralized exchange.
Anyway, some do and in fact, the same guy who put out that he bought the pizzas for 20,000 Bitcoin or 10,000 or whatever the rumor is, it was actually more like 86,000 Bitcoin that he spent on pizza, but all of that was mined. And a lot of that was mined because he figured out how to GPU mine Bitcoin, which then reduced the mining possibility group by some gigantic percentage because only some number of computers have GPUs while all have CPU.
Speaker 4 Because that's what a computer is. So then eventually, now that we're down to, like, I don't know, what let's say, 5% of people can mine because they have a GPU, ASICs were invented. Application specific integrated circuit, I think is what it's called, and it basically is a thing that can only mine. But now that ASICs exist, you have to buy ASICs. No one just has an ASIC laying around their house because the only thing it does is hash dot two fifty six. So now the mining pool or the pool of people who are potentially able to partake in mining is even smaller. A percentage of that already reduced percentage. So now you have just industrial warehouses full of these ASICs, and you have to, like, mitigate new power rates and find lost stranded power somewhere out in the middle of nowhere in order to make it fruitful to do it at all Yeah.
And always have the best equipment, which is super expensive. An s 21 even right now well, I don't even know. An s 19 last year was, like, $2,500, and that that was, like, the bare minimum for you to potentially maybe break even on your electric bill in a normal pool mining situation, which is when you point a miner at Luxor or Brains or some, like, ant pool, whatever, and you get whatever percentage you contribute back in the amount of Bitcoin that they have pulled as a mass pool. Right? This doesn't really work if your home electric rate is, like, 25¢ per kilowatt hour because you're spending more in electricity than you're getting in Bitcoin. So you can't do it at home. Right? This is all me just saying now you can't mine at home.
But with old miners, you can slide the boards into the oven, pop the chips off, and put them on little tiny boards that take up maybe 10 or 15 watts as much as, like, a CFL light bulb. You can plug that in in your house and lottery mine. And if your miner, one in 25,000 years, will do this. If you're a miner yes. If you have one, rather, you'll win a block once every twenty five thousand years or something like that. So you're saying that you got a chance. You do. There is a chance. It's actually probably better than the lottery, the real lottery per dollar spent. But you can buy, like, a $100 bid axe. It's just a little teeny tiny board with, like, one three hundredth the computational power of an s 19 or an s 21.
And now it's, like, not affecting your monthly power bill, and it's there. And you're like, I'm mining. This is real. Kinda. Because you're probably not gonna get anything. This is just for fun. It's like it's it's a talking point. It's like having a family photo around. It's just like, why'd you spend the money? I don't know. I like looking at it. But with Parasite Pool, the thing we were talking about, the miner who mines the block gets a full Bitcoin still. So it's not it's not the full 3.125 Bitcoin you would get from a block reward, but you get a Bitcoin, which is significant. The remainder of that is divided amongst whoever else is in this solo pool. So there's a novel thing that's somewhere between industrial, commercial, big boy mining and home lottery mining where you never get anything probably because you might get enough to pay off the equipment if someone else in that little teeny tiny pool hits a block.
And I think the odds in Parasite pool right now with a very organic hash rate is, like, once every seven years. But we just keep our stuff plugged in for seven years. Odds are pretty good everyone partaking will be able to pay off everything they've spent, and one person gets a Bitcoin. That's cool. It's a novel concept. It's somewhere in the
Blutoshi middle. Bit axes have won twice or two teeny little five volt miners like that, haven't they, Donnie? It's just in the last couple months. So I mean
Speaker 4 The last one that won was, an ultra, which has one of the lowest hash rates you can possibly get out of a chip. It's amazing. But it's so impressive that it could any single core on any chip could win it.
Blutoshi Yeah. It's absolutely
Speaker 4 incredible. So I don't know if that was the question you're asking, but question I was answering was, can anyone mine? Could anyone mine before? Could anyone mine after that? And now can people mine? The answer is kinda for the first time. Yeah. I mean, look. It is But,
Blutoshi Donnie, it it is a cultural thing. Right? Because, I mean, look at Chip. Like, he he got into Bitcoin mining from heating the stalls for his sheep and stuff. Like, he he solved a real world problem and then made money off of it too, and that got more and more immersed in this culture, then taught all of us the culture of mining. Mining is absolutely, a culture. And, you know, unless you're in California or some of these states with just absurd, poorly run, like, 43¢ rates, like, you know, even Illinois, I think we're at 15¢. It's not cheap, but it's not great. But if you're heating part of your home or part of your swimming pool, like, there are ways where you can kinda win and capture that energy back where it makes sense.
Speaker 4 Yes. If you need heat Yeah. Then mining is a clear winner for that because you can produce money and heat at the same time instead of just heat and lose money. So that's that's a big cool thing. There's a documentary that if anybody wants to bump into, it's called dirty coin, as in Bitcoin being the dirty coin because everybody was so mad that it, like, uses the same amount of power as Switzerland every year or something. Was, by the way, so do US dryers, clothing dryers. They're like, that's a terrible argument. Like, literally, the numbers are the same. The Bitcoin at the time of this statement anyway, Bitcoin was using the same amount of power as US clothing dryers alone. Think about that. Like, what do we want? Do we want the future of money to be secured? Do we want our clothes faster and drive faster?
Blutoshi Right. Dude, just drip dry your clothes and mine Bitcoin. It's a tie.
Speaker 4 Check out the documentary, though, because there's so many other applications for this. Like, a village in Kenya that has no power infrastructure but has running water, they can build a hydroelectric generator. Point point that at Bitcoin mines and then use that money to build infrastructure that would normally take, like, ten years to build and build it in six months because they're jump starting an economy locally by using wasted electricity. You can do this with, like, methane emitted from landfills and flare gas that can't be piped into anywhere reasonable. And you can heat facilities that are in, like, Siberia constantly just for free. Bitcoin mining. Maybe even you can make money doing it. You know? But there's a million things that will make this more accessible to not just individuals, but, like, states or five zero one c three or c c six corporations that are just trying to operate efficiently. There's a million ways we can incorporate into our daily lives.
Steven Miller Yeah. I the the mining element to me is really curious because and for the record, Donnie, you did answer the question. So so on you. Gold star. The big thing for me with the mining element is just that you're making it more accessible and more more easily educated upon, I think, is probably the best way to say it than we've ever seen it. Right? With with the intro introduction of parasite pools that makes it accessible, with the introduction of bid access and all this other, you know, much leaner tech, it becomes something that somebody can wrap their head around. They don't need to be fully technically immersed in the space. They can simply go through a couple of explainers and easily get it up and running. Right? I've already seen the you know, a couple of friends of ours locally here in Phoenix have theirs up and running, and it was fast.
Like, it was literally a couple of hours maybe. So to see that becoming, like, a much lower degree of friction is a big encouragement to me. But, Ben, I'm curious from your perspective if you think that any one vertical of culture that we've already discussed here today is really going to be the path for the masses. Because you've been in this space for a really, really long time, and I know that for what you've seen, you've seen certain onboarding waves. But I'm curious if you think anyone is really gonna start latching on and being more consistent for the long term.
Ben So I'm not great at predict predicting the future. I mean, I've given some of my views, right, about, like, you know, do I think AR and VR and XR will, you know, will at some point in the future, become more commonplace? Sure. Probably. When they miniaturize it, and it's in our glasses and contacts. And, you know, could that and AI cause blockchain technology to have an uptick in adoption as a foil against them? Absolutely. On an individual level, though, I think trying to pick the winner is difficult. Right? I mean, if we talk about how are ordinals different from Ardome Ethereum, right, there are things that are fundamentally different. Right? Whether that's you know, it's both easier in one sense to put stuff on chain on Bitcoin. Right? You can put bigger file sizes easier, you know, than on ETH where you've got for fully on chain art, but you don't really have an option for not on chain art on Bitcoin.
Right? So it's a different canvas. Right? You don't have the same smart contracts. I know things are being developed, but but you lack that infrastructure at a large level. Right? Metadata is not standardized in the same way. Or it's not indexed in necessarily the same way. So in some ways, it's a different canvas. Right? You're not gonna look at an oil painting and a digital painting and a piece of graffiti as the same thing. Right? So how that's gonna work with the culture, I don't know. I mean, if you looked at the art, one of the interesting things, like, at the art that was shown at the expo, was a lot of those artists started with counterpart. Right? They were like XCP counterparty artists originally. Now they're doing ordinals. Some of them had physical pieces. Right? I mean, Koldy has really cool, physical art too.
One of the interesting things for me at the conference was the weird stuff that was still going on. Right? So it wasn't just you know, you could go talk to Solo Satoshi, which is like some some guys from, you know, Texas selling bid axes, and I and I did. I talked to them. They're great guys. You know? So you didn't just have the big companies. You had that little you know? I still think culture is why you mine. Right? The reason I've got a couple of miners sitting here by my desk running is not because I really think I'm gonna pay them off. It's to decentralize the network. It's really a culture answer. You know? But one of the fun things was seeing some of the oddball stuff people were talking about at the at the conference. Right?
They were talking about, quantum resistant, you know, lattice based encryption and different ways to get there. Noster had some really cool stuff going on. Right? And Noster's sort of Bitcoin adjacent. Right? It's not exactly, but it's you know, but they had some really interesting. I was telling you guys that they they did a multisig for Noster, right, which when we're talking about decentralized social media and identity is really cool. Because on one hand, centralized social media, right, Elon could take our accounts, and we don't have an account. But with decentralized social media, you could also lose it or get hacked and lose your account. Multisigs are a cool idea for decentralized social media, and they showed a proof of concept. There was a thing that is like POAPs. You know, they're Nostradges that I saw, and I didn't get one. I was mad I didn't get one.
Will it take on you know, will the culture accept that or not? I have no idea. But I think if you have enough things going on and you're experimenting enough and it's interesting enough to get the right minds involved, something will catch on. So the answer, Steven, is I don't know, but you gotta do a lot of things, you know, for one of them to to kinda catch on and be the thing. And I don't think any of us are good enough at guessing it, or we probably wouldn't be sitting here today. We'd all be sitting on our private island. So I like to play with lots of new things. And if one of them takes off, great. And if not, it's still really fun, and it's a good culture, and it's better than, you know, I don't know, lots of other, activities you could be doing.
Steven Miller I was gonna say it's a whole lot better than damn near every l two that you've been pitched that is currently faltering. But, Blue, I'll toss it to you to kinda, you know, bring this thing full circle. There's just so much we could dig into with culture here, but I also know that, you know, these phenomenal guests of ours probably have a couple of other things that they plan to do today outside of just sitting on a recap space talking v 25.
Blutoshi Yeah. Everyone's planned shows today on the same time because Monday, they needed to rest. And now Tuesday, they're doing their shows, but not bad, Steven. 650 folks live. That's that's pretty damn good. I'm I'm thrilled about that. But, yeah, we can go around the horn. I do wanna follow-up with Ben before we slide back to Donnie and Violetta. Like, you came over to Bitcoin Bitcoin because into Ordinals again. And, obviously, you you came from there. To me, was always like coming home. It's like coming home to the mothership once Ordinals came out. So that first weekend, like, I was there, but you're you're way more entrenched in ETH than I was. And, you know, there's all this, like, ordinals people, and it gets old for me after a while. Like, you know, we're not growing fast enough in this and that.
And for my thing is, like, guys, in twenty, thirty years, like, it doesn't matter. Like, just keep building. Quit Hagler. You know what? Haggle. It doesn't matter. It's a decentralized network. But, like, coming from ETH where I, you know, I I was a Bitcoiner, went to ETH, had a CryptoPunk, was super into ETH NFTs, loved the whole experience, loved the culture. But once I came to Bitcoin, I was home again. I thought everybody would be following me right behind me. A, do we care that ETH folks aren't coming over, you know, back to Bitcoin and that they're kind of doubling down on their on their bags and stuff? But but at this point, you came back because it was early and you love to to tinker. Does does does it matter, or will it just take care of itself in the long run if people keep building?
Ben So you probably know my answer. There's room for both, I think, right, in terms of like I said, if you if you wanna put a five gigabyte piece of art on you know, go do it on Ethereum and Arweave and go do your thing. If you want to, you know, put something fully on chain on Bitcoin that you hope will live forever, do that. But like we talked about, there's gonna be room for both. Let's say, you know, in a hypothetical universe, quantum computers are a problem in five years. We talked about this culturally. Ethereum will hard fork way faster than Bitcoin will. They've done it so many times. It's it's part of their culture. They'll do it and be done. It could cause a different crisis for Bitcoin. I think both chains would overcome it. I just think they would do it in different ways.
It would look different, and some of the shakeout might look different. I think the same is true of art. There's room for both. The world's a really big place, and there's a very, very small percentage of those eight plus billion people currently using Bitcoin or Ethereum. I think there's room for both, and I think they'll learn from each other. I mean, I was listening to the talk, you know, with the Arch guys earlier, Nick, and, you know, he's talking about essentially using an SVM, right, a Solana. And yet there's, you know, there's EVMs that run on Solana side chains. There's SVMs that can run on Ethereum. Bitcoin's got all sorts of weird stuff going on on l twos. And I think that experimentation, that competition drives everyone to be better, whether that's chains or developers or artists. So I look forward to continuing to experiment.
I mean, heck, I'll say I'll say a word that hasn't been said yet on this call. I actually did my first fully on chain Tezos art piece the other day just because I wanted to do it. I've Talking been about is it possible for a long time. I played around with it. I got my piece on there, and it was fun to do. Will Tezos die? Maybe. They have some interesting governance mechanisms. There's still things we can learn even from them. And so that would be my thing is I still I'm still not ready to pick a winner. I think maybe they'll win at different things. Right? Maybe Ethereum will do something better than Bitcoin. I know that's dangerous to say. Maybe Bitcoin will do things better than Ethereum, but I I think there's room for both. There's a lot of people in the world.
And, you know, may the best chain and the best art win at what they're good at, and, we can all win. I mean, not saying wag me, but I'm saying, you know, they can all have their strengths, and, and we can enjoy and appreciate their strengths. You don't have to be a Maxi. You don't have to you know, this isn't a horse race. You don't you don't you know, it's not a winner takes all situation.
Blutoshi Got Stephen blinking a lot. Here we go with the Tezos. If you if you if wanna know Stephen's trigger button, just just say just poke him in the belly and just keep saying Tezos a lot, and he'll he literally will start imploding and puking in his mouth.
Steven Miller The second that you said it, Ben, I would I immediately was just like, oh god. It's still color commentary. Just
Blutoshi Just see him. Ben's talking. Stephen's like,
Blutoshi Tezos. He's having a Tezos conniption. Can I
Speaker 4 can I interrupt the Tezos conniption fit real quick? By all
Speaker 4 Is it okay? I just wanted to say and you can shit on Tezos all you want, Steven. I
Speaker 4 I think that to say that Canvas is stupid because sculpture is better is shortsighted. And I think that's a very similar argument that we're having with this, like, cross chain art thing. But some people are only interested in collecting sculpture, and some people are only interested in collecting, I don't know, oil paintings for a specific genre, like impressionism or something. Doesn't mean it's better. It just means that's what their focus is. So people collect where people collect whenever they vibe with it. And if we're asking them to come over and do this thing here, that's like trying to convince your mom to play Dungeons and Dragons. Like, if she doesn't do it already, probably not her thing. You know? She knows about it. Like, I talk to her about it all the time. It doesn't mean she's gonna come do this. Right? Like, she has other interests.
Everybody finds wherever they wanna be, and then they be there. And I don't think it's bad that we're, like, all over the place experimenting everywhere and putting art on chains that Steven doesn't like.
Steven Miller All all I care about at this point, Donnie, I'm past Tezos. I'm I'm on to please stop talking to my mom. But
Blutoshi I just love that Donnie brought up. I have
Steven Miller this beautiful image of the
Blutoshi mind of me playing dungeons and dragons with my mom. Like, your mage is getting thirsty. There's a pond. I couldn't think
Speaker 4 of anything more absurd than, like, someone's mom, like, them talking their mom into playing dungeons and dragons. I'm sure there was a better example, but, you know, that even works.
Blutoshi Yeah. It's Dottie, it is the best example there possibly is. I actually grew up in the seventies and eighties. I played Dungeons and Dragons, and it's so it's you know, we got stranger things final season coming out this year, big Dungeons and Dragons, so it's a perfect analogy.
Speaker 1 But, you know, at the same time, I also love that analogy, but at the same time, your mom, she really insisted. Your mom could accept to play a D and D with you because she's your mom and because she loves you. Right? So I also see that side where it really depends on what it is that you're gonna do. I like I said, I've just experienced it with my ETH collectors. They're just like, I don't wanna spend my Bitcoin. Like, I do not. You know? I would rather buy your art on a different chain. I'm okay with spending ETH. I'm okay with spending Tezos, you know, like, Tez and like Solana, but I don't wanna spend my Bitcoin. But I will do it for you because I want this song. And so the same way your mom would be like, know what, Donnie?
I love you, so I will play D and D with you. Like, the same way if you're doing something cool and exciting that's nowhere else and only you know why it deserves to be on a specific canvas. You're the you're the creator, the artist. You have the agency and the power to decide where something belongs. And if you can convince people because of the content, not so much because of the canvas, then they'll go. So I really I also agree. Like, it's just there is room for everything, and I think it's up to the creators to make an honest decision without being maxis. Like, where can my idea thrive the best, you know, for the good of the world? And then and then go. Right?
Speaker 4 Can we talk about the cultural difference in Bitcoin as a pet rock to Bitcoin well, the transition, I guess, of Bitcoin as a pet rock to Bitcoin as a storage device and a currency used to purchase things on that storage device? Because, Violetta, you said something that I've heard a lot where people are like, don't spend Bitcoin. I'll spend everything else. I'm not spending Bitcoin. I'm like, you know you could spend Bitcoin and then buy more Bitcoin. Right? It's not like, you know, once you put it there, you have to keep it there forever. Just
Speaker 1 a quick anecdote. Last night, Gary Cardone heard me play a song my song on his face. And he was like, I really wanna buy it, but I don't spend my Bitcoin, so I'll Venmo you. And then you send me
Speaker 4 Buy it with Bitcoin and then Venmo yourself Bitcoin. Like, what is your big thing? What is this weird hurt emotional hurdle that no one seems to be able to get over?
Blutoshi When you like, when you buy pizza with Bitcoin thousand dollar hardware wallet right here. Just, you know, from $20.16, $60,000 a pizza.
Speaker 4 ever bought a pizza before?
Steven Miller Like, once or twice. And, also, I feel like I'm being fat shamed a little bit, but go ahead. I'll I'll How much? I'll Okay. Steven, if you ever bought a salad anecdote.
Speaker 4 Have you ever bought a salad before, Steven?
Steven Miller No. But go go back to pizza. It's better. You like
Speaker 4 gello. You bought a pizza before, Steven. Let's say you you spend $20, US dollars on pizza. Right? You didn't buy Bitcoin with that $20. Isn't that just the backwards version of, like, it why do you spend money on anything if you could have bought Bitcoin instead? It's absurd. The whole thing's absurd. So I'm just I'm tired of this, and I'm glad that people are spending Bitcoin on Bitcoin assets. That's fun. Yeah. I think that's fun. It's a good emotional hurdle to get
Steven Miller over. I'm gonna bounce off you on it for one quick second because, like, again, I'm I'm more than happy to burn all the fiat, do all those things that everybody wants to talk about. But the truth is is that we just need to keep smashing down the barriers to entry. And if somebody wants to spend ETH to buy a Bitcoin asset or they wanna spend SOL to buy a Bitcoin asset or they wanna spend FIAT to buy a Bitcoin asset or they wanna use seashells to buy a bit Bitcoin asset, I don't care. And I think that it's it's a little silly to care because at this stage of the game, we're trying to allow for these assets to be stored on blockchains and for them to find their way to, like, penetrate into larger culture.
The only way that we're gonna be able to do that on a larger scale is by adopting a methodology that allows for us to actually transact in multiple currencies and then ultimately meet the collector where they are. That to me has been the biggest thing, and I'm a big believer, like Ben said, that, like, coexistence is the path forward for all of us. Like, fuck maximalism. And I'm I'm saying that knowing that this show is sponsored. Fuck maximalism. It just it's it's a nonstarter for me anymore. So I'm a huge advocate for it. I think there are a couple of really great platforms out there that are leading the way with it right now. And, again, I I they're not sponsoring this, so I'm not shouting them out. How about that? Boom. You got it. But there's a lot of them out there that are starting to get more aggressive about it.
Right? Allowing for multiple, you know, currencies to be engaged in the system. So I hope we start seeing that be the case. But at the same time, I I hear your point, and it is a good point. We should also be allowing for those that wanna spend their Bitcoin to then immediately buy back that Bitcoin once they've actually transacted. Right? I And there's plenty of issues out there that help that.
Speaker 4 It also feels to me like sometimes we get in this state of being where we're like, like, do you need to be able to use the US dollar in Mexico or the Japanese yen in Hong Kong? Like, does it really matter? Can you just go exchange your Japanese yen for Hong Kong dollars and use those where they are? Quite the same when we're interacting on blockchains. It's a native currency of a chain is the entire point of the currency. So if you wanna interact on layer one Bitcoin as a and you don't even have to be a Bitcoiner, but, like, the point, the whole value of interacting with Bitcoin is you don't have to trust the third party to do anything. If we start introducing all these, like, weird cross mint swaps that happen and then someone holds your shit for you and, like, where's your wallet?
Do you even have a wallet? Like, do you even own a Bitcoin asset if it's in some weird custodial wallet with a company that has, like, taken your Ethereum for you? I mean, I don't think it's bad. I think it's good to get art into people's hands, and it's cool to open the doors. I just want make to make sure people know that they're really not interacting with the Bitcoin network at that point. They're just interacting with an Etsy shop that is also maybe settling in Bitcoin. So there's a lot of weird hairy middle ground there that kinda, like, makes me go, yeah. I want them to get in, but, like, what's the cost on that? You know?
Steven Miller Yeah. I know. I'm I'm with you there. Blue I'm crazy. I know. Oh, I mean, you are. We that there was no need to clarify on that, buddy. We we got you. Don Donnie without wig, everybody. Blue Without a
Steven Miller Blue, help us help us put a bow on this conversation on culture because I I think that there's so much more that we could dive into, but I really do think we gotta allow these folks to who have been so gracious with their time to get back to the rest of their days. Let's put a bow on it, the way that you know how best.
Blutoshi Well, if you're gonna make me put a bow on this one, I'm sorry, but I'm stuck in, like, you know, the record that actually has, like, the scratch in it. So it just keeps skipping and repeating and repeating and repeating. All I can see in my mind is playing, I love you, mom, up there in the sky. And I did get my mom into Bitcoin before she passed away in 2018. That's fucking awesome. I think Ben and I were talking about this in, Vegas, but all I can think about, Steven, is I'm stuck on, like, rolling a 20 sided die for my mom who is fighting like an orc. You know? And I'm like, mom, like, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? He's about to kill you, and she's like, let's bake him a quiche. You know? So for me, it's all about the culture.
I had to take it. You asked you asked me to close it. I've you've you've set me up. I've knocked them down. I've knocked them down the whole time, but you know what? More. Now I'm going like, this is my hangout with Chip and Donnie in the swimming pool. Like, you've made me do videos all day, and all I could think about is my Dungeons and Dragons days, which started in Geneva, Wisconsin about I'm not gonna say how many miles from me. I'm in Illinois by a guy named Gary Gajax, and that's all I'm gonna give you. And Culture. Motherfucking culture.
Steven Miller A a power move if I've ever heard one. It's it's times like this, like, being somebody who used to host Spaces a ton. And mind you, I'm also amongst a bunch of really phenomenal Spaces hosts right now. Right? You know, Violetta, you are a stone cold boss at Spaces. Donnie, you're there. Ben, I know you're around, but you're not necessarily on Spaces. But the the reality is, like You didn't have
Speaker 4 just You know? Moved on to someone else. You didn't have one.
Steven Miller No. But, like You're getting shorter. To me, it's a little bit of a shitsgiving spree here. But the the funny thing is is, like, I sat here and just listened to Blue talk on and on about Dungeons and Dragons. And I'm like, oh, wait. This is live streaming. I could fucking mute him at any time, and it would be hysterical. For sure. But I'm not going to do that. You you know, Blue Blue is one of the biggest, you know, professionals in the space who I admire and, like, I'm more than happy to continue working with him regardless of how much I wanna mute him occasionally. The point being that there's so much we could talk about here, and I would encourage every single one of you that's tuned in as an as an audience member today to not only engage in the chat, but reshare this and share the reminder far and wide that it does not stop here.
Right? We have to keep having these conversations. We have to keep pushing the narrative. We have to keep pushing for a better and brighter future for art and culture on chain. Right? Regardless of where that culture lives, if it's Bitcoin, ETH, to nope. Can't say it. Not saying it. Nope. And Tezos. Nope. God. I'm gonna be sick. Alright. And the point And
Steven Miller Well, I mean, they're coming to Bitcoin, so joke's on you. An XRP too. Sorry there, Chuck. But, yeah, no, we we need to keep the conversation going. So please do chime in in the chat, reshare, tell your friends to, you know, spin up a space, and, join the conversation. Because there's a ton that is going on in the space, but let's throw it back around the horn to all of our phenomenal guests who have joined us up above. Give them the opportunity to, share any, big calls to action that they might have. Let's start first and foremost with Violetta. Violetta, where can people connect with you, and what should they know that you have going on right now?
Speaker 1 Thank you so much, both of you, for for having me, and a pleasure to share this space with the other guests. Yeah. Just, you know, I'm I'm here. I'm on Twitter pretty much every single day. I have a song minting on Bitcoin right now. My song Poor Millionaire, which is really, kind of a denouncing song about some broken system abuses that that a lot of musicians, have to endure. This happened to be a a former music manager. She was powerful and wealthy enough. She was able to get the court to freeze my bank account during COVID only because I didn't wanna work with her anymore. And so that would never happen if, you know, if we were using Bitcoin, obviously, you cannot freeze anything. The only thing she couldn't freeze with was my creativity, I wrote a song to get back on her, and now it's home on Bitcoin.
It's only $21 on Gamma. So, yeah, if people wanna check that out, it's kind of a a message I wanna spread out there for other artists as well.
Steven Miller Great stuff. That's poor poor millionaire. You can find that over on Gamma. Violetta, I appreciate you coming through today. And, again, I'm just speculating. It might be the number one diss track at 2025. We'll see what happens. Donnie, you're next. We're going in sequence. What where can people connect with you and what should they know about what you got going on?
Speaker 4 You can find me at it's donny, o k, I t s d o n n y, o k, on Twitter. And I don't know. I just keep on doing stuff I like. I don't I don't what am I supposed to say here, Steven? I don't have any, like, technical updates or shit. I got nothing.
Steven Miller We we always roll out the red carpet for our guests here on color commentary, and I know that blue is the same way over on blue nodes. So, you know, I feel like we gotta make sure we do it either way even if you don't have anything to call attention to. I just appreciate you coming through. Ben Meadows, any final things people should know about what you've got going on or how they can connect with you offline?
Ben First of all, thanks for having me on. Enjoyed our conversation. Let's see. You can find me on x or pretty much anywhere at the ben meadows. If you wanna see all the everywheres, just go to the benmeadows.com. Every once in a while, I'll, hopefully, say something interesting or post something interesting. And I think my takeaway is keep experimenting, keep having fun. You know? If this turns into suit coiners and drudgery, you won't hear me speaking on spaces anymore. It's it's gotta be it's gotta be about the culture. Right? The vision, the mission, the decentralization, the freedom, the connecting with each other. Right? The unity aspect of it. And so as long as you're still having fun and trying new things and, you know, none of us are maxis or stuck in our lane or just worried about, you know, number go up, I think we'll be successful. So that's it. Awesome.
Steven Miller Well, thank you guys so much for coming through. Again, that's Ben Meadows. It's Donnie O'Kay, and Violetta Zeroni. Appreciate you guys for being here. We're gonna run into our little wrap up here with the two of us, your two illustrious hosts. But I need to make sure that before I toss it back to Blue, that I give the team at Aon's all the love in the world. I, of course, have allowed for our guests to shout them out throughout the show. I have been periodically thinking about it and then just continuing to, you know, move fast and break shit, talking about everything from big announcements at b twenty five to art to now culture. But, Blue, talk to me about what your final notes and takeaways in in wrap up have been after this phenomenal conversation we've been a part of today.
Blutoshi Yeah. This has been absolutely incredible, and I promise I won't go into Dungeons and Dragons again. I just completely railroaded your you you you're like the John Stockton of ordinal spaces and and on chain spaces. You just serve it up, and all I have to do is, like, get four inches off the ground to dunk it. So I appreciate you. But, no, this is a great conversation, and and hats off to you. Like, you're you're the you know, you remind me of Colby. Like, you know, he's he's the hardest working artist I saw at the Bitcoin conference with with Art and just standing there and talking to people. And you're the hardest working guy I know who's asking questions, asking the right questions, being authentic. So I appreciate you, and it's been fun to be, along the ride for you. And what a great day it was today.
I mean, first, we started with kind of the the platforms and and what those guys are creating, and then we got into the the mind space of the artist with with Gerard and with Kaldi. And then, you know, as you know, it's one of my favorite things, and that's why I go off the rails sometimes because that's where the most comedy comes, especially with Dungeons and Dragons is culture. Right? And what a great cross section. I mean, when I think of culture and ordinals and characters in the space, obviously, I think Adani and Violetta is just so talented, as a musician and just such a great person. I got to go to Santana with her that first night, with the vivid crew, and what a great time just, like, getting there. You're everyone's a little jet lagged, a little tired, and just kinda chilling and listening to one of the legends, play.
So, hats off to Violetta. And then Ben, like, just one of the smartest minds in the room just, always kinda knows where to go and and stemming his curiosity. So combining those, that was three perfect kind of very varied perspectives and personalities on culture. So thanks for putting that together because that was that was a killer conversation. And and, you know, we're nearing three hours. It honestly felt like that was twenty minutes tops.
Steven Miller Yeah. Look. You there's no secret here. You've been running livestreams a lot longer than I have, and you're an absolute pro at it. You're a pro's pro, and you've taught me a ton. But as we've gone along this stream today especially, I've sat here in the driver's seat managing everything as we've gone along, and I've just kinda been like, man, if it may be it may be coming up on three hours, but all the technical work in the background, trying to make sure everything plugs in, plugs plays here, there, and there. Right. For me, it definitely was a little bit more challenging, but I'm very, very happy that we did it. Again, a huge shout out, a huge thank you to all of our phenomenal guests today. We had Nick Sinatto from Gamma. We had Nick Four from Arch Network.
We had Kaldi, of course, absolute freaking OG crypto art legend. We had, Gerard from Vivid here to talk about their ongoing auctions. We, of course, just wrap things up with Donnie Clutterbuck from Fimojis, Violetta Zeroni from v Violetta, yeah, Violetta Zeroni music, and, of course, the illustrious Ben Meadows. But, guys, it's been an absolute pleasure running these streams. I need to make sure we run our housekeeping back one last time before we close out. So allow us to bring up the screen share one last time. Like I said at the top of our close here, huge shout out to Aeons. Again, if you're not yet familiar with Aeons, they are the art patronage community on Bitcoin. Period. End of story. They've allowed us to go to BitcoinConference and explore a whole bunch of phenomenal art in the gallery there and bring you a ton of incredible content.
So huge, huge shout out and thank you to them. You can check them out over at aeonsbtc.com or you can Find them on x at aeons b t c. Do check out what they've got going on, guys. They're not slowing down anytime soon. Much besides that, guys, I did wanna make sure that we did bring it back around to the art. You can find this over on my profile. It's the weekly all eyes on art digest for all things tokenized art regardless of the chain. Yes. We even include Tezos over there. If you were an artist and you wanna gain more exposure and you wanna take advantage of that platform, it's there for you. Scroll down, discover all of the instructions on how your work can get featured in the digest. But, Blue, what final words do you have for our audience before we wind this one down?
Blutoshi Oh, that was fun. So, yeah. You know, you and I have talked about different ideas, but, I love these bigger conversations. And, you know, with video and just, you know, when you're not in person, people don't realize behind the scenes what's tough sometimes is there's a slight delay, so you really have to be, like, patient, in waiting for people to speak. But I love these bigger segments because I feel like when you have you know, I'm so used to interviewing and going just deep with someone like soul to soul with a one on one, but I love these, you know, four and five person meetings because, you know, you get these different personalities together, and it really kinda rises the tide of all boats. So, you know, I'm here because I love it. You're here because you love it.
And, you know, the ordinal space and and the on chain chain space and the cultural space of what we're in, we're creating something so much bigger now. We don't you know, it's it's like you can't you're we're just a part. We're each one, like, node or one, like you know, I I love to talk about my mycelia. We're like one little mushroom spore, like, mycelia under the ground just growing a whole greater kind of culture than ourselves. And, you know, we're crossing that mainstream chasm to to mainstream adoption, and we saw that at b 25. You know, there's certainly downsides of that, but the upsides are art is first and foremost right when you walk in. It is the sticky marshmallow glue that keeps the Bitcoin Rice Krispie Tree together patent pending. But it's just fun, and we're gonna keep doing this.
I got I got Steven laughing after a long week there and and a long weekend. It's been fun. It's been fun with you, man. And I'm here to do more and just keep exploring folks, and and, you know, you and I will be doing stuff together here and there too. And it's just like you you connect with the people that you vibe with, and I just feel like this this these people we're meeting now. You've been going to conferences longer than me, and you were the one who's very inspirational getting me to go to Nashville for my first one, which, believe it or not, wasn't that long ago. It at a year ago. But now, like, once you get on that circuit, that that, I wanna say, treadmill, but once you're on it, you just kinda let go, and it's just fun.
And it's to me, it's some of the best friends I've made. Like, you meet someone like Chip or Donnie, and you're like, there you are. You know? It's just, like, instantaneous because you already share the same language. You both share a love of art and technology and philosophy and and and and and and degen trading too. Right? But all of that mashed into one is greater than the sum of its parts.
Steven Miller Yeah. There's no doubt about that, dude. And, again, I'm I'm so glad that you were along for the ride with all of this. We did so much in Vegas, and we've, of course, at least in my opinion, are still just getting warmed up. But Yep. Just to kinda put a bow on things for us here today, I do wanna make sure that I give a couple final shout outs to some friends in the space and just express a little bit of gratitude. Like I said, at the top of the show and at the top of our wrap up here, huge shout out to the Aeons for continuing to support us and powering these streams. Also, a lot a lot of gratitude, goes out to Dennis Cook and Aaron Redwing for putting so much faith in us to be doing content not only from their events, but allowing us to do some, incredible stage speaking at, inscribing Vegas, especially.
I dude, I I was really, really impressed with the way that production went over there. But Dennis, especially with the way that he conducted that calendar this year, just was like it was it was exactly the right direction that we're headed towards. So allow me And you can see
Blutoshi where it's going. It's only gonna get bigger and bigger and become it's not even gonna feel like, oh, we have to find a spot for that. It's just gonna be, like, integrated in where the art and all the new types of wallets and bit bonds and, you know, all this interesting stuff on the financial side are all gonna merge in because that's what culture is, and and the Bitcoin culture is just, you know, and and the the greater crypto culture. But I will say from this conference, the Bitcoin culture is just something that's super unique, and it's it's changed how I look at at the world.
Steven Miller No question there. But, look, we've already thanked all of today's guests, so a huge thank you again to them. But a huge shout out to all of our listeners, whether you're here with us live or you're tuned into our recording, we're truly grateful for your continued support. For me, Steven Miller, I hope you'll join me again next Tuesday at 2PM eastern time, where we'll be running it back with Rafa, who's got a big drop coming up on Bitcoin. It's called Beacons. And we will also, fingers crossed, I'm trying to get him to respond to my latest email, make sure that we're confirmed. But we should be sitting down with Die With The Most Likes to talk about his upcoming collection over on ETH, which he's one of my favorite artists in the entire, you know, space.
So to me, getting a chance to chat with him about what he's got coming up with Gristle Buddies worldwide should be a really fun conversation. But for now, I've been Steven Miller. Of course, this is the color commentary, but that is my buddy Blue Toshi from Blue Node. We're both so grateful that you've been with us. I hope that you have yourselves a phenomenal rest of week. Blue, I'm gonna give you the last word, to send our, friends off into the week.
Blutoshi Oh, wow. Well, take care, everybody. Colby's auction is ending in six minutes six minutes at megalift.art. It was great having him on. Yeah. We'll see you soon. I'm I've got Donnie on tomorrow at twelve noon central time. Next week, I got Tan Tan on. And, you know, if if you're someone who likes to go deep and has a deep thinker, I don't care what you do in this space. You could be an artist. You could be a coder, even a bro trader. I don't care. As long as you're interesting, you know, hit me up. So, Steven, this has been great, and I appreciate you. And I can't wait to keep doing this. So thank you.
Steven Miller Likewise, my friend. For color commentary and Blue Node, I'm Steven Miller. That's Blue. We'll see you next time.