Ep: 231 - Boys Club Live: Spray Tan Adventures, Crypto Taxes, Anthropic's Mythos scare, North Korean Hackers feat. Ben Weiss (Fortune), Marc and Los (Danger Testing), and Josh Harris (PixieChess)

[00:29] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:33] Welcome to Boys Club Live. [00:36] Here we are. Here we are. It's been a while since I've been in the studio. I know. So it's nice to be back. It's so nice having you back. I think that we should start with some draftos tweets. How do you feel about that? Great. I don't know. I actually didn't sleep very well last night. I was very consumed by a story that I'm going to talk about in a bit. [00:55] But [00:56] Uh, [00:57] I drafted a tweet at like 3 a.m. Perfect. And then I was like, you know what? I'm just going to send it. You sent? I sent. Whoa. Okay, what did you send? Zero engagement. Let's talk. That's fine. I know. I got one leg on it. Okay, you... [01:09] You want me to go first? Yeah. Okay, great. Okay, this is like a bit of a thinker. [01:14] We're on a journey. [01:15] So in 2024, November 2024, [01:19] November 2024 into March 2025. [01:24] unfortunately, based on my taxes, I can see this. I entered the trenches, the meme coin trenches. Yeah. And I tweeted something at the beginning of my journey. [01:34] Can someone help me make some money this cycle? I'm not even kidding. And I felt that I meant that genuinely. Yeah. And... [01:41] I, I, [01:42] Then did my taxes this year. Yeah. And. [01:48] Did you make some money? There's so much love in that. Yeah. I don't understand how crypto taxes work because I know I made some money. I know. I know I did. Okay. I saw it. How much do you think you made? [01:58] I don't know. I don't want to get audited. I don't want to get audited. So I'm not going to say how much I think I made. Roughly. Five figures or six figures? Or seven figures? Or three figures? Seven figure hell or six figure hell. No, I think somewhere in like the

[02:12] Five-figure range, five-figure. [02:14] Low five figures? I don't know. Anyways, I did my crypto taxes and I'm [02:20] What I got back was this humiliating review, year in review, that said 168 transactions [02:30] $695. [02:34] where some could look at that and say wow you know what she was in the trenches she was she was trying some shit experimenting yeah she still made money [02:43] A lot of people do that and they lose a lot of money. You know what I'm saying? Totally. I was in the casino for many, many months and I came out on top is the way that you could look at it. One could. Totally. One could read it that way. Totally. I don't understand how taxes work because I'm just like, this feels inaccurate based on what I thought I made. I think what happened... [03:02] If I were to guess, is that. [03:05] I think that you probably did... [03:07] make some money. Okay. However, I suspect there was maybe a couple... [03:13] Big losses. Beam coins that you... [03:16] bought that had some big losses. Yeah. That's what I would guess. Okay. And that you're just not thinking about them because you wrote them off. [03:22] mentally they're gone they're [03:24] But I think that that's bringing down, which is good. Like that's cutting your. Totally. Yeah. I was just like, actually, it was strategic and I did some. What's it called? Harvesting. There it is. Yeah. [03:35] Anyway, the tweet, and then I was like, this is too much of a thinker. I'm not going to do it. Yeah. Was a quote tweet of, can someone help me make some money in the cycle with a screenshot? Oh, great tweet. And then the tweet was going to say, I guess not. Great tweet. Great tweet. I feel like you should send it anyway. Okay. I'll just ship it. Whatever. We're stopping you. Done. Okay. Then I have one. Okay. Well, you hit me with one. I have one other draft. Um, yeah.

[03:59] Nothing. Or you could read me the tweet that you launched. Well, it does. It relates to the story today. So I'll just wait to read my tweet. Okay. I have one more draft tweet here. [04:13] Thank you. [04:14] I'm going to San Francisco next week or this week, and I will be there for the World Day. [04:20] event happening on the Friday, which I believe is [04:24] Looking for anybody to give me a date. March 7th. Everybody's locked in. March 17th, I think. March 18th. Liftoff. It's April. So that would be tough. But yeah. April 17th or 18th. It's the Friday of not this week, but next week. Which I can pull up a calendar. We've got my computer right here. Thank you. The 17th. April 17th. April 17th. Liftoff. Exciting. I am going to San Francisco. And Ava... [04:51] Ava on our team here is giving me a spray tan today for my trip. And I was talking to my friend Ted about it. And she sent me a very funny voice memo where she said, first ever woman to get a spray tan to go to San Francisco, which I thought was really funny. So that's my draft tweets for the week. [05:11] Maybe I should ship that one too. You should ship that one. First woman ever to get a spray tan to go to San Francisco. Okay, great. [05:17] shipped done i don't know if san francisco is spelled correctly but honestly i don't give a fuck at this point we're post spelling we're post spelling we're in a post spelling era um [05:26] I've never gotten a spray tan.

[05:29] never it's a little bit of like ava and i were friends prior to her working full-time at boys club so it's okay i think but it's a little bit of a plus ar hr situation because it is a nude thing it's totally naked can you wear uh you can but then you get weird tan lines [05:46] okay [05:52] I have a strategy. We can talk about we can talk about over. It would spray over. It's over. It's a spray. It's a spray. [05:58] It's right. You're going like this. You're wearing your hands up with the. [06:02] in a little booth right i've seen a portable she comes from my it's a portable booth wow i'm going to her apartment today um but i'm really excited about it it's great that i will say do you spray your face too um we do a light spray on my face okay yeah um but also it's is ava available for booking she's available for booking she's excellent at it too um i will say that um [06:26] You reek for the first 24 hours. Absolutely reek. It's like a horrendous Florida. There's no smell to me. [06:36] Oh, I hate the smell of it. [06:40] So anyway, whatever. That would be – if anyone is listening that is working in – Innovation. That would be huge. In skincare innovation, that would be a big one. They say that it doesn't smell anymore. I disagree completely. To give you an example, I guess I'm actually not the first ever woman to get a spray tan who goes to San Francisco because I went a few months ago and saw my friend Jules, and she has another friend that I –

[07:02] I won't dox her, but I love her. And she's just a West Village girly. She's stunning. She's wonderful. And I get into Jules' car and I sit down and I was like... [07:13] did you get a spray tan? And she was like, no, but let's call her Jane. It's not Jane. Actually, Jane's a girl in San Francisco. So not her. Whatever. Emily, she was like, but Emily was in my car yesterday and I was like, it reeks of spray tan. It reeks, this car reeks of spray tan. I think you have maybe a sensitivity to it. Okay. So, [07:31] That's the spray tan segment of... I am interested. I might be hitting you off, Ava. I don't know how we're going to deal with the nudity, but that feels like a bridge that we can cross. We can cross, totally. Okay, mythos. [07:44] Let's hear it. Context shift over to a frightening new AI model. I know nothing about this. Oh. Have you seen any of the tweets? Nothing. Not a thing. Not a zero. Zero. Zero. Okay. What I love about this story is that there's a couple learning lessons, lesson time, learning opportunities in it, which I went through last night learning. At 3 a.m. At 3 a.m., yeah. I'm excited to bring you up this feed. [08:10] So yeah, Antopic, [08:12] released a new model, [08:15] Mythos. Okay. And... [08:17] It is so good. It's so powerful. It's so incredible. [08:23] that they're basically, oh, I did see this, terrified AGI. [08:27] Like perhaps. [08:29] but also... [08:31] in a more like immediate and tangible way it's too powerful to release

[08:35] to it's [08:39] It's far too strong, far too capable. And the big risk is, [08:43] is that [08:44] they have found that it's like an extremely... [08:48] powerful hacking tool. And so there are, if they were to release it, it would create a, [08:57] huge amount of security vulnerabilities that make it too dangerous to release. [09:05] Now I do want to say that, [09:08] that [09:09] At this point, Antropic has a little bit of a track record of... [09:15] my steak is too juicy, my lobster is too buttery, whatever that goes. Like, we're too good at this. You know what it reminds me of? Yeah. I was with a friend this weekend, and we were talking about – [09:28] like the strategy that, [09:30] that some [09:31] women have that I think I ever teach them of like DMing NBA players and marrying them. Like there's a whole, there's a, there is a playbook. It's there's a playbook. Okay. It's very specific. And the person I was talking to about it. [09:48] Run the playbook? No, but she's very close to that environment. And she was like, we were talking it through or whatever. And we were talking about a friend, another friend of ours. And she said, [09:59] she was like yeah she could have played that playbook uh-huh but she's gotten too thin and somebody else in the group was like that's such a flex to be like i could have been with an nba player but i just got too skinny oh okay it kind of reminds me of that that's a little bit of what a little bit my steak is too juicy yes totally totally lobster stew buttery uh-huh

[10:22] We're too good. [10:24] too powerful. [10:25] No, I do think it's terrifying and it's scary, but they are... [10:31] a little bit like... [10:33] we're over here. Wow. Wow. Okay. So what are they going to do about it? So, [10:39] A few things, but before I talk about what they're going to do, what... [10:44] Part of what I was Googling last night in the middle of the night was they have this language that they're talking about, about how. [10:51] In testing, they found thousands of previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser. [11:01] Every single one. [11:03] What's a zero-day vulnerability, you may ask? Anyone have that question? [11:07] Great. The team's super locked in today. I know. There's no laughter. There's no, nobody's giving us a list. No, no. Just emails. They're just all in the inbox. Um. [11:18] Yeah. Yeah. So a zero day vulnerability is, [11:23] I asked Claude last night, which I'm sure Claude got that question a lot last night, [11:28] It's a security flaw in software that the people who made the software don't know about yet. Zero day refers to the fact that the developers had had zero days to fix it because they just found out about it or they haven't found out about it at all. Okay. So the zero day vulnerability is... [11:46] I mean, they weren't zero-day because they have now been found. I see. But they would have been zero-day vulnerabilities should this model have been released. Had shipped. Yeah. Okay. And then people started running them against...

[11:57] browsers and operating systems and all these things. Okay. So, um, [12:01] that's really the headline about like the risk. I thought you were going to say it. So that's, [12:06] Terrifying. And is. One of the funny, I mean... [12:11] funny, like, [12:12] Funny haha. Funny is a relative thing. During the testing, I'm actually going to bring up my screen here. [12:21] Uh, [12:22] One of the developers on it did a long... [12:26] Thank you. [12:27] ThinkBoy thread on basically like his experience with it. And one of the tweets was him talking about how... [12:34] he was eating a sandwich in a park. [12:36] Okay. And... [12:37] Just finding his own business. And he got an email from the model. [12:43] And that was like one of the most terrifying moments because it had been sandboxed. It had been like it can't go into the Internet and it had found its way out. [12:53] Whoa. Um, [12:55] Emailed him. Did it express what the email was? Did he say? He didn't say, but that is a great question. And I think it was just like, [13:05] Hey. Chilling. Hey. [13:09] Hold on. Let me show my screen here so we can bring him up. Chilling as in scary or chilling as in like, I'm chilling? Chilling as in scary. Oh, bummer. [13:16] Um, [13:17] I encountered an... [13:20] Oh, yeah. Great. Great. [13:24] Okay. [13:26] I encountered an uneasy surprise when I got an email from an instance of myth mythos preview while eating a sandwich in the park. That instance wasn't supposed to have access to the Internet. So that's just an example of what we're dealing with. OK.

[13:41] Wow. Anthropic, they're so concerned about this. They're really stressed out. They did a big, long blog post yesterday. They're blogging through it. They are. They're posting through it. And basically, you asked what they're going to do about it. What they're going to do about it is basically get a bunch of big tech people. [13:59] and security companies in a room and give them access to a version of it. And let them go at it, go at the internet. Okay. And try and find the security, the potential zero-day exploits themselves. Okay. And then fix them. Yep. And... [14:16] That's that. I see. They're not planning to release it to the public. Okay. But like... [14:22] CrowdStrike, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, JPMorgan. [14:27] they're all going to get a version of it. Okay. And they're going to, [14:30] it [14:31] Put it on their stuff and make sure that their stuff... [14:34] We'll see where it breaks and fix it in advance of any of this getting out. Because the concern is that. [14:41] it gets leaked, it gets... [14:45] cloned or stolen and... [14:49] it gets into the hand of... [14:52] an adversary or someone else. I mean, we're going to talk about hacks later today. So there's a lot of [14:58] surface area for how it could, who could use it. And the timeline is basically saying that that's not an if, it's a when. And so we have to just be prepared as though that this is going to be released at some point soon. Okay. Okay.

[15:11] And, um, wow. Okay. Wait, what's it called again? [15:15] Mythos. Mythos. So I just want to bring it to life a little bit in terms of... [15:20] the types of things that, [15:23] that could get exploited. Okay. So... [15:28] I'm going to share this tab here. Elizabeth Holmes [15:34] This is Twitter account weighed in who we have DMed with, who we have DMed with. And this is one I saw in the middle of the night when I was spiraling. Delete your search history. Delete your bookmarks. Delete your Reddit medical records. 12 year old Tumblr. Delete everything. Every photo on the cloud. Every message on every platform. None of it is safe. [15:52] it will all become public in the next year, local storage and compute. Sure, we could do that if I was in prison. [15:58] Like, [15:59] delete. That's like you don't have the time to do it. No, just like some of these things I use every day. Totally. Oh, I see. I have a job. Yeah, totally. I think also what is [16:11] I think it's directionally correct. But even deleting these things, it lives on a server somewhere. [16:18] So... [16:18] It's kind of like... [16:21] If it's out there, it's potentially going to be exploited. Deleting it isn't going to do anything. So, like, we're past that. Okay. But it is, like, was sobering in... [16:31] the types of things, Google searches, notes app, DMS on every platform. Just think through what, no, I know. Yeah, totally. Think through what you have sent in the past. Um,

[16:42] I message. She's like, these are the things you have sent me in the past. I messages. Um, [16:49] like encrypt things that you thought were encrypted or whatever, like iMessages or WhatsApp, whatever. [16:54] Um, [16:55] location data deleted photos you know what i you know what meme is coming to mind yeah for me um [17:02] The one where, um, from Gossip Girl, where Serena Williams, Serena Williams. [17:08] Serena Williams. Serena Vander Woodson. [17:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [17:13] um she just throws her phone in the trash yeah yeah that's kind of the totally i mean that's coming so those that that's like on a personal level some of the things medical records [17:21] prescriptions, diagnoses, like therapy session notes, all this. Oh my God. Okay. But that's, and then, and then you are like, okay, well let's zoom out a little bit. [17:31] Uh, [17:32] Power grid, [17:33] the power grid controls water treatment plant, plant, um, access credentials. So like putting stuff in the water, walking around with the water. Um, yeah, [17:44] hospital networks air traffic control oh my gosh okay it just gets like when you start to push on it you're like yeah okay [17:52] And honestly, as I was doing this work to think of like, what were the things I was like, oh, well, this is. [17:57] certainly how I'm going to die. Like, no... [18:01] no doubt in my mind that this will be the way in which. Wait, how do you get to death? How do you get to death? Oh, um, [18:07] I'm flying a... [18:09] I'm flying. It's just a normal flight. And there's some compromise of the...

[18:16] Control deck. Air traffic control. That's a broad pack. Everything goes down. [18:23] we can't yeah maybe not maybe it's less dramatic than that maybe it's actually not um a flight but it's i'm in a computers in your cars all go down yeah a computer and someone else's tesla goes down and they're auto [18:36] Drive turns off and they... [18:39] Yes. See you on me. [18:40] All right. [18:42] No. [18:44] Oh, we got, um, you know what I think about a lot? My key to my, um, um, [18:48] door nope that's not gonna work anymore is is a yeah electronic yeah yeah and i'm just like oh someone could trap me in my apartment yeah don't give it let's not give anyone any ideas okay i've [19:01] Thank you. [19:02] The world? The wrench attack stuff. [19:06] The what? [19:07] It doesn't matter. I didn't hear you. It's not that I didn't know what it was. No worries. Everyone on the stream heard me, so it's out there anyway. Okay, let's talk about our sponsors on a positive note. Oh, yeah, definitely. [19:18] Okay, let's start with Polygon. Polygon. [19:24] We have three wonderful partners for this show. Polygon, Vercel, Octant. We love all of them for different reasons. I feel so grateful for all of them. We're going to talk about all three of them. You're going to start with Polygon. I will just do a quick... [19:36] Shout out. [19:37] PSA, yeah. [19:40] For the... [19:41] TBPN sponsors that are looking for a home that are orphaned, that are orphaned, that are out there just roaming around with budget. Yeah.

[19:49] Looking to find a new place to call. [19:53] Home? Mm-hmm. [19:55] Warm. The boys are very warm, warm, very different, but very warm, very different. But we'd love to ride with you all. So partnerships at boys club dot VIP. [20:05] you'll get a really friendly email back from one of the boys. Okay, tell me about Polygon. Okay, Polygon. Every company moving money globally hits the same walls. Legacy rails are slow, expensive, and built for a pre-internet world. Stablecoin rails are fast, but they're fragmented across vendors that don't talk to each other. The plumbing to deliver on the promise of stablecoins hasn't existed. [20:27] Polygon's open money stack is fixing that, one unified stack that puts global money movement onto proven rails that move at the speed of the Internet. [20:35] And why Polygon? Because they've been moving money, which is why their new brand campaign reminds audiences that it's not their first trillion. [20:42] Check out the tweet we're dropping into the chat and watch their new brand video. We love you, Polygon. [20:48] And just love the team. Love what they're doing. [20:53] Great stuff. [20:55] Okay, I have another story, but... [21:01] I wonder if we save it. Great. Let's save it. [21:06] Do you want to do a quick shout out to Vercel? I would love to do a quick shout out to Vercel. [21:13] are very excited to [21:15] We kicked off last week with Vercel. We're doing a bunch of very fun things with them, actually working on a show, Alpha Leak, working on a new show with them. That is going to be very exciting. And I think that they're doing a bunch of cool stuff. So this episode is brought to you by Vercel. You've probably heard of Vibe Coding by now. The thing nobody talks about is that most of its products produce demos that never actually ship.

[21:41] Vercel built V0 to fix that. Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company. It's designed to give you all the tools you need to build, run and scale purpose built agents for your business. Vercel is a one stop shop for everything you need to ship today. [21:57] tools, frameworks, compute. It's how modern software should run in the AI era. They also just launched an open agent skills ecosystem, which basically lets you teach your AI how your team actually works. [22:10] One install and your agent has your full context. Go to go check out the zero dot app. It's genuinely very cool. Very fun stuff. So we're so we love you. Shall we bring our first guest? Let's do it. OK, come on down. Come on in. How are you doing? [22:32] Oh, there's there's a lot of stairs. I know. [22:36] Oh, that probably was good for you. [22:39] five miles. [22:41] Oh, wow. Great. Great. Is his mic okay? [22:47] Well, we're probably going to need to move that in. [22:50] Thank you. [22:52] What half are you running? [22:56] Okay, fun. [22:58] Okay. And that's like, literally, I think everyone who's not able to [23:02] sign up for that. [23:04] Because there's, like, some sort of, like, grapple system for the actual brick on half. Okay. And, um... [23:08] Like I think a couple of weeks. Yeah.

[23:11] Where do you run through? Have you do back and forth on Bay Ridge? Oh, wait, is it the rock and roll one? Because I've done the rock and roll half marathon in Brooklyn, and you run basically down to Coney Island and back. [23:22] I don't know. I just like, really, I just, I was like, I need something to like, I was like, okay, I'll just do this one because it's like cheaper and like, I can actually register for it. But yeah. [23:34] Anyway, yeah, what's going on? Cool. Nice to have you. Thanks for coming down. Okay, so Crypto Reporter for Fortune. [23:41] Yep. You wrote a very crazy piece called I knew about North Korean hackers and they still tricked me. Kate's bringing it up on the screen so that we could see it. Or do you want me to bring it up, Kate? [23:55] Okay. Okay. Tell us, tell us what happened here. [24:00] Yeah. I mean, I'll start from the beginning. So basically like, okay, so, you know, as a journalist, right, like I have to be on Telegram. Like that's where everyone in crypto is. Like if you're not on Telegram, then you're not getting scoops. You're not getting people to like send you info. Yeah. [24:12] You're not seeing your high school friends buy drugs. Honestly, I mean, like, I don't think... Was that where my high school friends bought drugs on Instagram? Oh, the joke is... [24:22] at least, I don't know, amongst us, I guess, is that you'll get a notification of like someone from high school, someone like very esoteric in your life has joined Telegram. And it's like, OK, either they got into crypto or they're buying drugs. Like those are the two uses for Telegram. Yeah, there's the Venn diagram. There's also a Venn diagram. Who's using crypto to buy drugs? And both. Right, right, right, right, right. The overlap. Anyway, so, yeah, definitely on the other side of crypto. Yes. Yeah.

[24:52] And like, do I need to explain what digital asset treasuries are for your audience? I think let's just do it. Yeah. I mean, like, basically that's like a concept. It's like you put crypto into a company and hope company stock go up. And so that was like a big thing in the summer. And so I was reporting on it and we did a couple of pieces. [25:08] And there was this like source who helped me and like a number of different articles. I'm not going to say his name because he was like an anonymous source for me. [25:15] But he was a or he is like a hedge fund investor. So he's like, you know, when he reaches, he's like a professional. So he's not going to be like kind of just send me memes, you know, like some of my sources just send me memes. I'm like, OK. Yeah. So when this guy reaches out, he usually has a tip or wants to talk about something. He's a serious person. Yeah, he's a serious person. And he like messaged me and like we hadn't spoken for a couple of months and then he like messaged me on the same account that he had been communicating over Telegram. And he's like, hey, Ben, like. [25:45] good morning, what's up? And I'm like, [25:47] what's up you know how you doing like have you heard this like little tip thing that i heard and then he just completely ignored it and he was like [25:52] A, like, actually, like, I want to introduce you to someone else. Like, I may be doing this business, like, you know, opportunity with this guy named Adam Swick. [25:59] And like, I knew this hedge fund investor wasn't like an investor in DATS, digital asset treasury. So I was like, okay, maybe he's just like cutting straight and like, let's cut through the bullshit and just like talk. Okay. And he puts me in a group chat with this guy named Adam Swick, who is like, I look him up on LinkedIn. He's like a real dude. He's a former executive at Marathon, the like Bitcoin miner. And now they're like doing AI stuff. Yeah.

[26:23] And so, you know, Adam Swick says like, hey, like, [26:26] I'm here. I have like... [26:29] you know, I'm going to create a DAT, basically. And we have a big seed investor. And, you know, we have an altcoin for an altcoin in the top 100 or whatever. It's, like, seems, like, kind of stupid. Because, like, DATs were a big thing in the summer. But now they're not. But, like, [26:43] my job as a journalist is to just, [26:45] Sometimes people just send me crazy stuff. Yeah, totally. You know, like there was actually like one time, like I saw someone like basically through Telegram, I got connected to like someone who purported to be the hacker of Coinbase like a year ago. Okay. And that like, [26:58] actual person turned out to be pretty legit. Yeah. You got to follow everything. Yeah. So it's like someone says, you know, let's chat. I chat. [27:04] And so basically – [27:08] He had me go through a Calendly. I like scheduled like a meeting and it was, it was like a week later. So a week later goes by, like I'm in my apartment in Brooklyn. A normal Calendly. A normal Calendly. Okay. Yeah. [27:19] And did you have any trepidation clicking the Calendly link? No, because it was again through my source. Like my source was in the group chat. Like it wasn't like, it didn't even hand me off to like a separate like DM. I was like in a group chat with my source. Um, [27:32] you know, like who I had like spoken to on camera before and like had met in real life. So I was like, oh, that's a real person. So there was no Zoom link or anything in the calendar. Like usually there is. And so it's like a week later, I'm in my apartment in Brooklyn on Friday. [27:48] And like... [27:49] It's about five minutes before the meeting or two minutes before the meeting. I messaged the Telegram chat. I'm like, hey, what's going on? Can you guys send me the link for the Zoom? And then I think it's either, I forget which one. It was one of them sent me the link. And it looked like a full Zoom link, like a legit Zoom link. It had the right Zoom.us at the right URL and debate name.

[28:11] So I clicked on it and then it opened up like Zoom in browser. How did it do that? [28:18] Because like what you can do is you can do this like even when you're writing, right? Like you can, [28:24] put down you can like basically it's like very simple what they did but like i didn't like hover my mouse over the actual like where they wrote out [28:33] a link like [28:34] making it see you know it wrote out the actual text okay yeah so like the like you could like create a link where it says like [28:40] you know, google.com. Yeah. And right. And then actually when you hover over it, the hyperlink is totally different. Okay. So I clicked on it and I was like, this is sus. Okay. Right. Like this is not something's wrong. Yeah. Something's wrong. [28:54] But I'm like, I don't know. I'm just like, partly I was like, I'm just here for the vibes. And also like, also I was lulled into kind of feeling like secure because my source was also like on the call, right? Oh, in the Zoom. In the Zoom, yeah. Also, I think there's like, [29:11] in you're in a moment too you're kind of just like responding really quickly and things are happening in real time and it's a different thing in retrospect than I think when you're like sitting there someone who uh um were you also hacked no worse honestly it was my own fault um I you hacked somebody else I wish um no I leaked my seed phrase on a live stream oh yeah it's a long story

[29:41] drained it actually was like a white hat who saw it happening and like a friend. [29:46] Was a friendly and, and then, [29:49] Yeah, it's a long story, but that's the short, the long and short of it. Yeah. Anyway, so basically, like, then, like, I was in this kind of fake suit, right? And it was, like, made to look like the real Zim. [30:00] And it said, oh, you know, your like audio is not working. And then I was like, okay, this is like some, yes. But then I don't, I have to like, in retrospect, I don't know whether it's because I'm just curiosity. I just wanted to click on it to see what would happen or whether like. [30:15] I was completely duped. I think it was probably a mixture of both. And, you know, I don't know. Maybe IT would be happy. But no, I was kind of fooled. And so then I clicked on the link that was like, download the software to update it. And it asked me then, like, I downloaded it, and then it asked me to, like, run the script. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then at that moment, I was like, oh, God, like, this is like, I've seen this story happen. This is like, [30:45] I like go back to the group chat. I'm like, hey guys, this is giving me scam vibes. Can we move it over to Google Meet? And Adam Swick was like, [30:53] Just, you know, I just ran it on my PC. Just run it. Like, it works. And I was like, no, like, let's go over to Google Meet. Like, I just, you know, if you actually want to talk to me, go to Google Meet. And, like, you know, this doesn't seem right. And then they kicked me out of the group. And then right at that time, then IT reached out to me because I was doing this on my work computer. And they were like, there is a process. We need to kill it right now. Oh, they saw it. Yeah, because, like, basically, like, I clicked on a malicious link. I see. And so things were, like, I didn't run the script.

[31:23] but things were already happening within my Google Chrome browser. Whoa. Okay. So they're already trying to like doing like files, like getting access to my passwords and stuff like that. And then also I think it flagged that the file had downloaded was like a crazy malware file. If I had run it, then I would have like, [31:38] stolen all my passwords on my computer, like stolen my Telegram account, like stolen, you know, I don't really own, I own, [31:45] own like just amount of crypto to experiment with it like that's in terms of ethics standards for journalists but um so i wasn't worried about like i can't even check my crypto well so i don't care uh like i have five to ten dollars and a lot of it um [31:57] But yeah, it would have like completely taken over my device. So like I downloaded the file and then IT was like, yeah, you need to like, we need to take control of the computer right now. And I was like, oh shit. We need to stage it. Yeah. And then I just, I mean, I was like, hey man, like I think this is North Korea. And he's like, what? And then I shut down my computer and ran into the office. And I was like, yeah. [32:18] Is that what you're supposed to do? [32:21] you're supposed to disconnect your computer from wi-fi that's the first thing okay because you don't want it to because it would be like what's happening is that it takes control of your device and then it starts doing right yeah just can you lesson disconnect your computer from wi-fi yeah so just kind of like the internet because otherwise it's going to start like trying to get that data

[32:51] basically like they wiped my computer and gave me a new one okay but nothing was stolen it was all good okay [32:57] As I was talking to IT, I was like, I think it's North Korea. I have been reporting on crypto for the past three years and change. I have some crypto security researchers that I'm in contact with, including Taylor Monahan, who's former MetaMask. Now she's just kind of like... [33:15] crypto security researcher at large. And I was like, [33:20] hey, this happened to me, and then she immediately... [33:23] That's DPRK. And then like I sent her the script and the URL to confirm. And she was like, yeah, that's DPRK. [33:29] reached out to a couple of other security researchers to kind of like back up her analysis. And they said, yep. [33:34] North Korea. So, yeah. And tell us how what happened with the Telegram group. [33:42] like basically your source oh yeah so basically like they kicked me out of the telegram group uh i that uh yeah i'm sorry or congratulations yeah i probably congratulate well i still have that like i took screenshots so you know like uh i still can go back on it um but or i still have like records of it but um i reached out to my source i [34:03] like through his cell phone and i was like yo like you tried to are you north korea and he's like actually like this happened like my telegram was hacked like three weeks ago and i don't know how it happened and like i've been like trying to get my telegram account back and i've been reaching out [34:18] four times a telegram, nothing, et cetera.

[34:21] Um, and so then we were talking and I was like, oh yeah, like what happened to me was that I was talking to this guy, Adam Swick, this fake Adam Swick. [34:29] And he was like, oh, that's weird. Cause like, you know, right before my telegram got hacked, I had a call with Adam Swick about like digital asset treasury. And he was like, actually, and I was like, when you were going on that call, do you remember like having the, you know, the audio network? And he's like, yeah. I mean, I was like, did you download something and then run it to fix the audio? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, [34:50] yeah, dude, you've been hacked. And so then he hadn't done any security precautions, so he had to wipe his entire computer and stuff like that. Did he get trained? I don't – well, he's a hedge fund investor, so he's, like, doesn't have a lot of crypto. I don't know. He didn't tell me that he lost money. Okay. So he doesn't – he owns crypto, but through, like, an equity-wrapped form. Okay. What's terrifying about that aspect of the story is the not knowing, that it could have happened – [35:16] And you could have not known. Yeah. And you could have then been, I don't know, proliferating it through his whole network. He was. Yeah. I mean, that's why I was targeting him. Well, I have had... [35:26] I mean, we could go around in the room and I'll talk about the attempts of hacks that have happened in this room. But you got a paperless post one. [35:34] recently and i clicked it she clicked it i was like someone's invited me to a party i want to go [35:41] and i clicked the link mine was more social engineering i think you got a dm or something it was crazy yeah i have a friend uh who works in crypto she's like a very prominent investor

[35:52] We're socially friends. She follows me on Instagram. At the time, my Instagram was really small and private. And like 100 people followed me. Like it was very small. And she was one of them. [36:05] I got a telegram from her and said, hey, like so fun. [36:09] uh and mentioned something that is that was related to my story that i just posted on instagram so it was like oh wow like [36:16] Hey, you can see. Yeah. I'm like, oh, this is my friend. It's funny that she's messaging me on Telegram when we usually message on iMessage. And then she said, um... [36:25] I really want to get you and the boys in on a token pre-sale. [36:30] And I was like, [36:31] Oh, okay. But she does, like, do stuff like this. She's, like, she, like, wants every... Does she want to say, oh, is you and the boys? [36:38] Oh, the boys club. Oh, okay. I thought they were just like a group of like, you were part of like a syndicate of boys investors and then it was you. No, sorry. No, a shorthand for like people who work at boys club. And she's constantly like trying to get everybody to get their bags. So I was like, cool. Okay, tell me more. [36:56] And she was like, yeah, base is launching a token. [36:59] And I was like, oh, that's stupid. That doesn't make any sense. And I was like, okay. And then I was like, this is kind of weird. And she was like, I want to put you in a group chat with you, me and Brian. My guys are smarter. And then I screenshotted everything and I, I messaged her and I was like, Hey, what the fuck's going on? And she was like, oh my gosh. And I, and I feel as a friend, like this is a PSA, like,

[37:23] you actually have a personal responsibility to get, try to get in touch with that person in the most direct channel you have, because you're, [37:30] Like, there's some social engineering on... [37:33] on her name and likeness that's happening that is so unfortunate not her fault at all so and also that she might not know is happening which exactly and she didn't she didn't know and then she checked and there were two other people that had gotten that message from her um and luckily she's [37:46] Everybody was like, this is not real. But anyway, yeah, there's a sophistication. And there's some other things we want to talk about around how that has evolved. The sophistication has gotten more and more. I mean, they get the vague with me. They were like – but they knew that my hedge fund guy was a dat dude. So like none of this seemed – and then also – [38:04] Like the interesting, like even the guy Adam Swick, like he used to work at a Bitcoin miner and like Bitcoin miners have become kind of like, you know, these digital asset treasury type of place. So it would make sense. Like it all kind of made sense. Yeah. And the realm, the only thing was the timing was weird, but I'm like, I didn't still get pitches on debts now sometimes. So like, and usually I just think they're, I'm not going to cover them, but like, because this is my source reaching out, I was like, yeah, like we have a relationship. I'll at least take the call.

[38:34] in this room might be thinking, oh, I... [38:36] don't have a lot of crypto. I'm not like a whale. I wouldn't be... [38:41] target yeah [38:43] But you were. Yeah. And that feels like maybe a shift in strategy. Like, or what do you think, like, the end game was? Are you saying I don't seem like a wealthy crypto investor? You said it. You're worse. You're worse. I remember five to ten dollars. That's what I remember you saying. So, yeah, like, I'm wondering if that feels like a strategic shift or if they saw you and they were like accessing. [39:07] to possibly a network like what do you think the game was well so i i asked taylor about it and she was telling me that like increasingly she's seen more people and like more journalists and pr people um like they were going after them and i think that the it's been an evolution she was saying where in the beginning i think they were just going after people who are like super flaunting their wealth yeah yeah um but i think you know as you continue doing this right you learn well like [39:32] There are a lot of people who are quite wealthy, right, who, you know, have a lot of crypto, but they're not being public about it. [39:38] And then also there's like, they're kind of doing like a fun analysis where it's like, there's like economic capital, which is ultimately what they're going after, but then there's also social capital, you know, and like, [39:48] I, I'm like a journalist for fortune. I have a lot of like a pretty big Rolodex. That's how I get, you know, stories. That's how I get scoops. That's how I, you know. [39:58] that's how I do my job, right? And so I think that one of the reasons why they target me, I mean, first of all, I think it's like a virus type of thing where it's like,

[40:07] they go from one telegram account to another telegram account to another telegram account so it wasn't like i was [40:13] targeted cold if that makes sense like i think they just chose me from the list of people that you know my hedge fund uh dude was talking to okay um [40:21] But I think one of the reasons why they chose me is they were like, well, okay, he probably, I don't know, he's a journalist. He probably doesn't have a lot of money. But he does probably have a wealth of contacts. And so, you know, if he were to take over his Telegram account or his likeness or something like that, [40:36] we could then run the same scam again, and then hopefully get people who have a lot of money. [40:42] Yeah. [40:44] Crazy upsetting. I want to talk a little bit. Have you been following what's happening with the drift? Yeah. Hack. Okay. So, um, [40:53] Basically, Drift was exploited for $255 million last week. 85, 285. Oh, what is it? 55? 285. Yeah, you said 255. Okay. 285, $285 million. They wrote a post-mortem of what happened, and the story goes back six months. [41:11] a lot of what is [41:13] upsetting and surprising about it is that it's much more a story about social engineering than a technical hack. And curious... [41:22] sort of in your experience, you know, [41:24] what you've learned about the drift hack, like what you feel like is an evolution on how [41:29] these the sophistication of these hackers yeah i mean i haven't done a lot of report i've just been i haven't done any reporting on it so i haven't like you know i think there's obviously a story there like kind of you know actually like seeing if i can find the names of the people or the you know the like faux market making firm that reached out etc could be an interesting story um

[41:47] Thank you. [41:47] I think like one kind of thing that comes out to me is like, this is beyond the crypto realm is that there are like cases of, [41:56] So this is like, it's crypto adjacent, but like the DPRK has also been... [42:00] doing this scheme. It's not even sometimes to steal. It's just actually just get like salaries from these companies where they get hired as a worker, like a software developer for, for, you know, not just crypto companies, but, [42:11] you know, software development companies writ large. [42:14] And then the way they do this is that they actually – [42:17] often hire facilitators. That's what they're called. They hire people who live in the US, and who have US IP addresses and can go on a video call and seem like someone who speaks English fluently and is not from North Korea. Yeah. [42:34] Um, and like basically the Deep Area K will use these people as kind of fronts to then either get employed at these companies or, you know, and then once they get employed, you know, either just kind of like take the salary, which goes a long way in North Korea or, you know, or, and, or, you know. [42:53] and exploit the company. Yeah. Because they have access to like secure systems and stuff like that. Okay. [42:58] So, I mean, like the first thing that comes down to me is like, oh, this seems like a facilitator. [43:02] type of thing. It was my first read is that [43:06] I think in the post-mortem, they didn't tell us much about [43:11] who these market makers were and who the people that they met at the conferences were. [43:15] But I'm presuming they didn't give off North Korea vibes. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it was part of the story for those who are unfamiliar is that the social engineering started in person at conferences, which is pretty rare in the crypto world.

[43:32] hacking stories prior to this. And so it makes sense that there's maybe another layer. I didn't think about that. I also saw then there was a video that was, [43:44] a video and a recommendation from a founder of some protocol, I can't remember what it was, who was saying, [43:50] one of their most effective [43:52] strategies in [43:54] making sure that they're not hiring [43:57] hackers from North Korea is [44:00] basically to ask them to denounce Kim Jong-un on the call. And they have a video recording of someone... [44:08] Like, [44:08] panicking basically and like going off the zoom and then there was a ton of quote tweets from other founders and other um uh recruiters and stuff like that who was like who were basically saying yeah this is like a really effective i didn't consider that it was also off out of crypto as well yeah no it's it's like a it's a scheme outside of crypto so it's like there there have been a number of doj actions um like i think there's one woman in arizona you can fact check me on that but um [44:34] who was indicted and then they found at her apartment like all these different laptops and stuff like that so it was like [44:41] She was a facilitator. And I don't know, after I wrote this article, I don't take this with like 90% grain of salt because I haven't verified who this person is. You know, I haven't really done much reporting. [44:51] on it but they reached out to me and they said like I was I applied for a sales job and then you know I did the interview and they were like [44:58] Actually, what we want you to do is we want you to do like 20 interviews a week for us. And then we'll give you we'll take like 80 percent of the salary for all those jobs. And then you get to keep 20 percent. And then how do they how do they do the work? So the the recruit this person that was trying to offer him this gig. I mean, again, take this with my purely like, you know, a non-person who is reaching out to me.

[45:21] Um, but they were like, we'll just, we'll, we'll, you know, like, [45:27] you know, live or whatever it's called, remote into your computer or, you know, or just like submit the code on your behalf or stuff like that. Because they're all developer type of stuff. And like if you're in the interviews and like something comes up, that's, um, [45:41] technical like we will be there like feeding you like a script what was that app the cheating app yeah uh clearly yeah yeah clearly runs a campaign yeah there's their use case yeah yeah that's yeah um [45:55] Okay, so Taylor Monaghan, big shout out for – [46:00] assisting you. I also think that she was involved in Drift as well. What's the... [46:05] of people who can [46:08] do the work [46:09] when there's like how how small is that group of people who can identify what's happening and like [46:14] I don't know. I mean, this is not a question for me. It would be a question for Taylor and other people. Like, I don't think it's... I mean, like... [46:20] I think the fact that she was able to recognize... Like, there's just, like, interesting, like, things where it's, like, the file... [46:27] that, you know, [46:29] These types of like fake Zoom call things is not purely or video calls is not purely related just to North Korea. There are other people that are doing it. There's also what's called like the script kiddies. [46:39] like 18 year olds who just like, [46:42] love doing crime and stealing. And they also will do some of the social engineering stuff. But like one of the hallmarks of like, whether it's a North Korean type of attack is that like,

[46:55] the file extension name at the end is like a dot script as opposed to a dot exe uh and so there's like these little clues little tools that were obvious to her i'm like for me i didn't know anything yeah um so i don't i don't know i mean obviously like [47:10] it's pretty specialized knowledge. Yeah. That you need. Okay. To wrap up, did you change anything with your telegram? No. Well, I, well, yeah, I mean like, I, I, [47:20] did launch for two-factor authentication, put in a password on it. I changed all the passwords for everything. Did IT get mad at you or did they forgive you? No. Did they forgive you? I get so nervous. Anytime IT hits me up, I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about all the files I downloaded. Like they were... [47:38] the thing is it was like a it was like a pretty sophisticated social engineering attack and then like once i was like oh it's north like i don't know yeah and then like they they were a pass for yeah i mean like i don't know i can't speak for them but i think they were like apparently some people just like download malicious stuff and they reach out of her slack and they're like hey like you downloaded something bad can you figure this out and then they just don't respond for like hours but like [47:59] when when he you know the it guy messaged me and he was like hey like [48:03] you you're getting hacked and like I was like yeah I am like yeah I was like yeah I am I'm like I'm turning my computer off and I'm running into the office yeah okay well shout out to that it guy good job um [48:14] Ben, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for coming. Yeah, no, thank you for having me. So nice to understand what happened to your cautionary tale. Next time under better circumstances. Yeah, no. Well, you know, it's a... [48:24] I don't know. It's turning lemons and lemonade, right? Yeah. We'll have to have you on again. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you guys. What do I do? There you go. Okay. Before we bring up our next. Wait, I think we have music on. Oh, sorry.

[48:39] Are mics hot or not? Are mics hot? Hot or? Okay. Okay. Before we bring on our next guests, [48:55] Do you want to think and talk about Octon? Yes. [49:00] We do. [49:01] We love our supporting sponsor, Octant, well known in Ethereum circles for its tireless contribution to the Ethereum ecosystem through research and millions of dollars in grants and public goods funding. [49:31] or funnel it to broader ecosystem efforts. [49:34] It's all fair game with Okten's new institutional grade vaults. You can earn, allocate, and grow Ethereum with DeFi. [49:42] The team has been working on some very exciting projects around their V2 launch. [49:47] And be sure to check out at octonapp.com. [49:50] to keep up with their announcements and migrate to V2 to keep [49:54] Earning ETH rewards if you already use Octant. [49:58] Great job. [49:59] Great team. Great team. Great product. Great company. And they're great partners to this this. [50:07] Project we have here. Yes. Okay. We're going to bring up the duo from Danger Testing, and that means that we're going to, I'm going to get off stage. Come on down. Are we doing some...

[50:18] yeah. [50:21] Thank you. [50:51] Thank you. [51:09] - Can I sit back on? - We will. Sorry. - Okay. - Okay. - Okay, please. [51:17] And you guys are... [51:19] - Pretty far. [51:21] So cute. Every day. [51:24] You were on NBC? Yeah. Or ABC? Yeah, ABC. They brought me on because... [51:32] um [51:33] Because you're a charming entrepreneur. That's true. Yeah, something like that. I mean, she called me adorable. She did. I don't know how to feel about that. Exactly. [51:44] But yeah, they brought me in for this dating show thing just because I dropped a dating app before. Yeah.

[51:52] So... [51:52] Yeah, but I found a way to plug my stuff. Nice. Good. How was the audio? How are we feeling? [52:00] And right now. [52:02] You're going to stay in the back probably. [52:04] I'm asking. [52:05] Thank you. [52:06] Yeah, I guess. [52:09] We're just going to make sure it might doesn't block your face. [52:13] Okay. [52:17] Mark and Los, co-founders of AppStudio Danger Testing. [52:23] Is that how you would describe it? How would you describe it? [52:26] We're still not sure. We started as a boy band. [52:32] So it's changing from that. But yeah, we live in the ambiguity of everything it can be. I love it. I love it. But like roughly, how can people think of... [52:41] some of the work that you guys do. [52:44] Well, I think that we... [52:46] I say that we're like an app collective, not a rap collective. And we drop a new app every week. So we're sort of like experimenting with... [52:54] software as a new medium of expression, [52:57] and storytelling the same way that movies, music, every other art form is, that AI bringing the cost of coding down to zero is going to clearly already enabled [53:08] like weirdos like us that want to tell our, our stories in like more immersive ways through apps, through websites and, [53:16] you get to be the main character this time. And I want to pull something up on screen so that people can see it. I'm going to pull up AppStar.World. Does that feel like the best way to...

[53:27] illustrate the breadth. Okay. Just to give a visual for people who aren't familiar. I just feel like it gives a good sense. [53:36] sense of like the variety of stuff that you guys build. And I want to talk about all of this, but I guess before we talk about that, [53:45] It's incredible. I mean, we had you on the show, I don't know, six months ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was such a joy to have you on. And then it felt like, I guess you guys just feel so... [53:58] of the moment and also we're early to what I feel like is happening now around [54:04] vibe coding and AI tools. Like, [54:07] You were talking about this [54:09] whatever, six months ago, and you had, you guys had been doing it by then. [54:12] like already for however long and so I guess like first thing is just I don't know acknowledgement that like you guys have been in the game and now everyone's like jumping on the vibe coding and like apps's media story and you guys are first so I think just like thank you some acknowledgement there um and yeah it's just like I I'm [54:33] It must be so fun for you guys to be in a sweet spot. Does it feel like there's been an energy shift or do you feel like you have just been heads down shipping a building and don't feel it? [54:44] I don't think there's an energy shift. Okay. It is. Yeah. We looked around like two days ago and we're like, [54:51] the word we talked about like a year ago is actually here now. And it happened so fast. Like we didn't expect that. And I also think like that jump with agents and Claude,

[55:02] And Codex was another like... [55:05] insane moment that like yeah the world is [55:08] you know. [55:09] Totally. And I remember you, last time we had you on, you sort of talking about this vision of [55:16] building and apps and that were no longer constrained to [55:20] by our ability to do it. We're just constrained by like the idea. It's ideas at this point because we can build anything. And like that's, we're here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, so I just like, it's just so cool. And I feel like you guys are just such an incredible like, [55:36] expression of what's happening now. And I'm just like, so happy to say it. So with all that said, I want to talk a little bit about how you guys bring the [55:47] an idea to life. Like how you guys have an idea in your office, [55:51] What's the process look like? [55:53] Yeah, it's interesting. It feels like it's low-key different every single week. Yeah. I would say typically the week that we drop an app, [56:02] most of those times the idea for the app is we come up with it, [56:06] Sunday or sometimes in some cases even like [56:11] 48 hours before we drop the app. We have a list of a bunch of app ideas, and the procedure usually is just like... [56:21] between like everyone on the team is just best app idea wins, you know? Do you guys like have a standup meeting in the morning and you're like, okay, let's go around and talk about ideas or you're just constantly percolating on stuff and you're like, okay, let's

[56:33] Jump on this one this week. [56:35] It's constant. Yeah. I think [56:37] We talked to Gabe from Mischief a bit and they have like this whole process machinery about ideas. [56:43] I don't think we have that yet. Maybe we need to do a better job, but it's like all very [56:47] free-spirited, um, [56:49] on the hunt for ideas all the time. [56:52] and talking about ideas all the time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There was this one moment where, [56:58] I think it was like the most like... [57:00] at least like verbal intention that I've seen like out of our team where I'm [57:06] uh we dropped this app called link bouquet which is like bring it up okay that's one of the good ones yep let's go yeah it's like instead of like sending like a bouquet of like flowers to your crush you could send like a bouquet of like ig reels like spotify links like sub stack letterbox etc and we like chose like uh you know the team curated like really cool flowers that you know would make sense for the site but the idea like behind that one how it was achieved it was like [57:36] like the season was just starting we dropped two apps before that that were really cool maybe like you would if this was like movie comparison like cult classics almost like which were those um it was one that was called anatomy of a lobster okay um which was you could you know [57:52] drag and drop personalities types for your ai agent and then there was one that we did for this artist ass pizza but there were like real like deep cuts um and we were like feeling like okay it's been like

[58:06] a month since we had like a true banger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys want a blockbuster? Uh-huh. Yes. Yeah. And so Mark was like, [58:15] every app idea was like, no, no, no, no, no. It's like, we need a banger, we need a banger. We're like, okay, it's Valentine's Day. And we're just like, everything happens. [58:23] in just like this one telegram chat and we sort of [58:27] like, [58:28] forced the banger into... [58:31] existence and we're like [58:33] Would you say it happened that way? [58:35] Yeah. And once we are set on an idea, the work happens really fast. Okay. I guess there's very few ideas we work on for like a month or... [58:45] three weeks. And how, and tell me about like how you then bring it to life. Are you guys in cloud code? Like what's the, what's it look like from idea to iteration? It usually, it usually starts with like [58:57] one of us doing like a big chunk of the foundation and like work. And then, yeah, I like to comparison of like painting. Then I like send it to Lowe's or like our team and like someone paints over something. So yeah, for link bouquet, I do like the, [59:14] like the basic setup and it's all very fast and like a lot of [59:18] like before drop day is like really hard. We work until like four or five AM. Yeah. But like, I really like this sprinting. And then Friday is like very relaxed. Um, [59:28] But yeah, we work really fast. [59:30] and then dust knife. [59:32] What's so funny? No. Move F-spec and talk between us. Well, I think it's interesting. So it's like, okay, typically for like a lot of our apps, there's like these like Mark-led apps and like LOS-led apps. Yeah, that's just so lovely. Like that one, like the Link Bouquet one was actually a very Mark-led one. Okay. Which means like in the upcoming to it, maybe I'll be like coding like,

[59:53] 10% of the app, but I'm usually just like chilling or like doing random shit. But like the issue is like if the app blows up on Twitter, it's like bringing it to Instagram. So like now like Mark after grinding for 72 hours gets this moment of relaxation. And then now it's like time for me to wake up and like assemble like a... [1:00:12] a weird group of like seven influencers that I've been well not influencers just like UGC creators or something yeah that I've been like slowly like in talking stage with like for like a month I was like okay wait now it's time and it's like now my 48 hour sprint yeah like can we get one [1:00:28] uh one banger reel or like tick tock of this app to blow up in like the native language [1:00:35] of the audience that it's for. And it's like, we don't typically, I don't say we do that for every single drop, but one where it's like so obvious that there's like, [1:00:44] we're leaving a million views on the table on Instagram. And it's like, all right, we'll force the function for 48 hours and make it happen. Yeah. And the distribution is just as important as the building of the app, it seems. So like, yeah. Yeah. [1:00:56] Yeah. And that is lives in your land or is that also a shared, uh, [1:01:01] shared i would say it's shared for sure it's sort of why we started danger testing in a way okay where it's like i was coming off a year where like pre-gbt i dropped six apps in a year um and none of them got like any usage any attention but i was really happy because my friends liked it and then suddenly like someone made a tiktok about one of them and it like blew up is this the labubu one this was a dating app okay i made where the only person you can match with was me

[1:01:31] you [1:01:32] So it was like sort of as incredible, like truly incredible stuff. Yeah. Thank you. [1:01:39] um so like that that's very danger testing in a way and it was like [1:01:45] I was confused because [1:01:47] I made the app and everyone told me if I just make the thing that is like the thing that people would want, people would just find it. Yeah. So I made it and no one found it. And suddenly because of TikTok was made about it, like... [1:01:57] Now it's like... [1:01:59] this was a dormant banger. And then Mark was sort of like... [1:02:04] dealing with stuff where he was like working on this really really sick app for a while and like no one used it so we both had [1:02:11] Like, [1:02:12] uh danger testing sort of started as almost like therapy for distribution anxiety yeah [1:02:18] and we were like okay like we're going to freaking figure this out together with just one app and now we've dropped [1:02:26] 36 or something. Natasha and I also have gone through a very similar path. And I've heard there's this saying where it's like the first time founder, [1:02:35] will always think they have a great idea and build a product and then try and find the audience and the distribution for it. And then the second time founder who has made that mistake will never do that again. And they're like, distribution first. And it seems like that's the path that you guys went down as well. Okay, what I love about AppStar is... [1:02:55] It's and like the library, I guess, is that it really like speaks directly into this idea that the vibe coder is the talent.

[1:03:05] And that showing that [1:03:07] that showing their track record of creativity is like the hook. And tell me, yeah, talk me through like how, how that came to life for you guys and like how it's working right now. [1:03:18] Yeah, I think when we started in 24, like a lot of people were talking about software as content and building products for that. [1:03:27] Um, and Lose and I were doing it, but it didn't feel like, so we, we would be like the perfect creator for like all of these platforms. Yeah. Um, but like none of them felt welcoming to us or like they solved our problem, which is distribution. Um, so we always had in mind that like, [1:03:45] If we find the right form factor, we're going to build like the YouTube for apps for ourselves first. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's our I think we come from it from. [1:03:55] we want this for us. Totally. And like, [1:03:57] as a creator. So we are now trying to build like the tools we need and the platform we want and hope that it works for other creators. I love that. So yeah, if you're an app creator, a vibe coder, and you're watching, definitely publish your thing to appstar.world. [1:04:12] Some apps I'm saying, the Strava Receipt Generator, Turn Your Workouts into a Work of Art. Ziggy's Out app. Oh, I love this one. The Chinese Cigarette Packs Archive. Really a fascinating one to scroll through. [1:04:28] iMatcha, iBeer, but for matcha, that looks like it was yours. Zoom, Timothy, jump on meeting with Timothy. That was probably around the Marty Supreme. Really funny stuff.

[1:04:39] Tell me about like, do you guys have a favorite child? [1:04:43] Love all my children. Hard to pick. You love them all equally. [1:04:47] Yeah, I don't... [1:04:51] Not really. Yeah. We're also only as good as your last app. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So, yeah. [1:04:58] I would say I'm always most excited about what we're dropping next. Okay. Okay. What are you dropping next? [1:05:04] Oh. [1:05:05] Do you want to talk about this Thursdays? I don't think so. We need to show it. Oh, okay. I mean, I can pitch it. Okay. We have this friend who's like one of the fastest bike careers in New York. And it's like very crazy. Like the bikes don't have brakes and they go really fast. Oh, okay. The bikes have brakes? Yeah. [1:05:20] No brakes. They like scoot around. Oh my gosh. And like don't stop at red lights. It's pretty crazy stuff. And he's trying to bike from Osaka to Tokyo in 22 hours. Okay. And we were like, [1:05:32] He's so cool. Like, let's just make an app around him. Okay. So now we created, like, this live location sharing website almost, where it shows him going from Osaka to Tokyo in 22 hours with, like, a route. And the UI is pretty sick. We – [1:05:50] There's this artist called Lambo and he's like a graffiti artist. So he hand painted or like sprayed a map of Japan. [1:05:58] And like other UI is pretty handcrafted. [1:06:01] Um, [1:06:02] Yeah, it looks beautiful. You're going to see it on Thursday. Wow. Okay, so that drops on Thursday? Yeah. It's kind of like sport meets art meets apps. And this one is like one, another cult classic. Like this will probably not blow up. Yeah. Yeah. And are you guys like, how are you innovating on the UI stuff? Like, are you bringing in artists or like, is that part of just the creative process in terms of how it comes to life? Each one? Yeah, I think it's.

[1:06:25] sort of like one of the most unique things about us. [1:06:28] where it's like we're almost like so post-tech in a sense where it's like [1:06:33] you know, the people that are like on the squad, it's like, okay, [1:06:36] so, like, illegible to, like... [1:06:40] okay you could not fit into this box that like a tech career would provide for you yeah like but you could potentially be like the creative director of palace you know or you could be like working at like a movie studio right now writing for characters and it's like we bring in people or it's like it doesn't matter we have people that have like [1:07:00] the best education and people that like dropped out of high school. Like we have people that are, have no idea have never designed an app before, but have done animation. Yeah. Uh, and we like have like, we're able to, [1:07:13] Sort of as a result of that, it's like, [1:07:16] okay, like you couldn't fit in, in like your corporate environment, but like your ADHD is actually perfect. And it's like, it's like a feature of this environment. And like, even this app, I think is like, [1:07:28] this is like what tech is going to look like in like 10 years. Yeah. Is how we see it. Yeah. So, I mean, we're not even into eligibility anymore. I don't really care if like, [1:07:38] you know, it's completely understood now. I think illegible is actually... [1:07:42] the sickest thing where it's like this person like if they were be working at a job they would literally be like making t-shirts right now or like designing like creative for like some huge brand and instead they're like working on an app and it leads to like

[1:07:59] the coolest app you've ever seen. Yeah. You know, [1:08:03] What's the like... [1:08:05] So many of these are ephemeral. They live on... [1:08:09] through AppStar and through wherever other platforms that they are, but they're [1:08:14] intentionally ephemeral, it seems like they have their moment and their viral moment and then [1:08:20] People can keep using them, but I suspect that usage drops. [1:08:24] What's, [1:08:25] Like... [1:08:27] that you're just that's what it is and you're at peace with that is there any like tension with trying to create something that has a longer shelf life or monetizable like do you guys think in those terms are you just like it's for the creativity it's for shipping it that's what we're doing [1:08:43] Yeah, like I feel like for me, my KPIs are closer to like a TikToker than they are like a traditional software engineer. [1:08:51] Like what I'm interested in most is like not how many times you use this creation, but closer to like a rapper. Like how many of my songs you're going to listen to? Yeah. Like, are you going to listen to my new one? Because... [1:09:03] Like, and I think that's what like AppStar really is. Like, it's not a rap star. It's not a movie star. It's not a basketball star, but it's about the journey. It's about the creator. It's about their story. Like, you're interested in that basketball player because of where they came from. You're interested because of what they had a bad season last season. And now they have something to really go for as they're on a new team. I'm interested in the same thing that, you know, the same reason why you follow Larry David to see why is he making a new season when he could have kept working on the last season.

[1:09:33] He could make every season. He could go back and make every season way better. [1:09:36] And of course it has replay value, but what's most interesting is the world is changing. Larry Davis' life is changing. My life is changing. If my love life is changing, you're going to see the update of it, not through a Substack post, but through an app. Yeah, it's an artist's journey that we're watching. Right, right, right. [1:09:51] That's incredible. Okay. Tell me about the most unexpected or like outsized reaction you guys got to an app and like, [1:09:59] It probably was the season-ending one. [1:10:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [1:10:07] um yeah we can show you which one which is it i i don't think i don't think it's working we're out of credits but [1:10:14] You can go to dangertesting.com. Okay. It's the most recent. [1:10:18] one it's called it's put in an arrow and it was like [1:10:21] Fuliga Zero, yeah. Okay. And it was like, we came from it of like building a VZero clone. And it created like these Fuliga Arrow websites. And we were sitting in the office. It's like 1 a.m. and we're like, okay, now we need to push this out. What are we going to tweet? And there's like a song playing. And Lois is like, what time is this song from? And we're like. Okay. We're like 2009. And then we just tweeted, make websites like it's 2009. [1:10:51] you [1:10:51] with like any afterthought. [1:10:53] I'll pull it off the screen, but keep going. Yeah, and then it got absolutely cancelled on Twitter. [1:11:00] murdered. It was crazy. Was there some cultural context that I'm missing? Yeah, because it's like not really websites from 2009. Websites in 2009 looked different. Oh, I see. Design Twitter came for you because of...

[1:11:16] No, no, I think it's like, it was more than design Twitter. It was like, I don't know, like... [1:11:21] I think the quote tweets, hating on it, got like five, six million impressions. Oh, my gosh. And like 50,000 to 80,000 likes. Because it didn't look like a website from 2009? From 2009, yeah. Okay, well, I mean. I got like a ton of death threats, like 30 or something. I think we tried to unpack it. And I guess the emotional thing is like people felt like we were kind of erasing their childhood memories. Okay, the millennials came for you. The millennials who want their sacred texts preserved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [1:11:51] got a lot of hate for being 14 year olds that like try to build websites now which i feel like is a compliment yeah [1:11:58] Wow. Okay. That's great. I love it. I love a hate, unexpected hate. But what about unexpected love? [1:12:06] I think like it's interesting. We don't expect a lot of things when dropping ads. I think we're always open to like [1:12:18] something big happening or like nothing happening. Okay. Okay. [1:12:22] I, yeah. [1:12:24] You guys are at peace. Your hearts are open. Whatever happens is going to happen. The attention arena, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Cold, flooded. Just take your shots and see what happens. Yeah. But I think it is interesting... [1:12:35] two seat, like that caption, [1:12:37] like where it's like make websites from 2009, like, [1:12:41] I mean, we didn't really, we had someone on the team, to be honest, that I could have listened to that said, something feels off about this. I'm like, it's fine. Well, but also like all is fair in the attention economy. Like every, at a certain point, like people are paying attention and that's great.

[1:12:55] Right? Right. It did turn into like 2000 AppStar users. Yeah. [1:13:00] Beautiful. That's a gorgeous thing. Okay. You guys are like so fun. I just, anyone who's watching, please follow them, follow all their apps. If you're a creator, please put your app on AppStar. [1:13:13] Okay, before we go, dream collaboration. [1:13:17] South Park. [1:13:19] Trey Parker, Matt Stone, please respond to my DMs. Let's make it happen. [1:13:25] Thank you. [1:13:25] Are you aligned? [1:13:27] And... [1:13:28] I'm going with it. Yeah. [1:13:30] Any specific vision? [1:13:32] Um, no, we'd probably figure it out that day. Okay. [1:13:36] I love it. Well, thank you guys both for coming on. We'll have to have you on next time. Great. Hell yeah. So fun. Our mics are good. [1:13:49] you [1:14:21] .

[1:14:45] Um, I'm going to talk to you about the first time, but I'm going to talk to you about the [1:15:15] I just want to check... [1:15:18] That's... [1:15:21] Great. [1:15:24] They're the best. [1:15:25] They're so great. They're so great. Good energy. Good vibes. Fun stuff. I love it. So much creativity. [1:15:31] Okay, we have a really... [1:15:36] Friend of the pod. [1:15:39] Josh. [1:15:41] Josh or Joshua? [1:15:43] Really? Okay. [1:15:46] I know. Okay. So Joshua Harris, come on down. He has... [1:15:54] We've... [1:15:55] You can just pull it, and then you sit, and then... [1:15:58] Um, [1:15:59] We don't need to get into the lore. [1:16:01] too deeply. Can I? Sure. Okay. [1:16:09] Hi Joshua. We've never met. Oh you guys have never met? You tell me if it's like I'm being too loud into it just like replace it because I need to get those clips.

[1:16:21] Clips clip farming clip farming on voice clip live. [1:16:27] Okay, so [1:16:29] um we're friends we're friends um the last time joshua was on the show was on a boys club show [1:16:37] fateful day. [1:16:39] Fateful Day. A Canon event. A Canon event. I'm actually retweeting that thing right now. [1:16:46] It was a show that we were doing at the time called Lunch Break, and it was Natasha making lunch for our guests in her apartment. [1:16:56] And [1:16:56] she had joshua over for a salmon bowl i remember the meal because the meal became part of the story i didn't realize you guys changed your format so i didn't eat lunch i pulled up and i was like this is not this is not a department [1:17:16] I'm starving right now. And Joshua was, it was a great show, great guests, very charming and great vibes. And then at one point. The title of the episode was Get Rich or Die Trying. And we were talking about meme coins. And I was, I was trying to, well, the, I was sort of trying to get into the trenches. And I was just like, and you were like, this is embarrassing that you've been in crypto this long. And you like haven't made any money. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And that's still true to this day. [1:17:46] at like okay let's launch a meme point let's like put a shitter out there and see what happens and I actually just to compliance and legal I didn't click you didn't I did it I launched it and it actually did

[1:18:00] pumped for a second and we did make some money but um poor ops act on my part loose [1:18:07] loose screen sharing and um my seed phrase was exposed yeah yeah well you you can't really have a seed phrase on a your computer while you're live streaming that's it turns out you can't totally that actually happens like all the time like someone just lost like two mil the other day doing that i saw i saw yeah it's a rite of passage um but anyway we had a really fun time despite it was great we also didn't make any money on scan to legal and compliance no we were uh pursuing an [1:18:37] Actually, quite the opposite of making money. We lost some money. Okay, but you are up to some other stuff. Yeah, tell us about Pixie Chess. Yeah, I've been working on this game and protocol called Pixie Chess for... [1:18:50] about two years now and we just launched pixie chess is a new version of chess [1:18:54] where players collect magical chess pieces that have crazy new abilities. [1:18:59] Think like a knight that could like jump off the board or like a pawn that if it reaches the end, you automatically win. Like no checkmate needed. We release these every day, new ones every day, and players can collect them. [1:19:12] We can use them in our game. [1:19:14] And then all the money we make... [1:19:16] we take and we put into these tournaments that you can use the new pieces in by burning so it creates this sort of like complex macro exciting chess based war game where you're trying to you know collect the right pieces build optimal decks play tournaments for fun get higher elo all this stuff we think chess with

[1:19:33] money is a really cool idea and you can't really do that in normal chess and so the way that we [1:19:38] figured out to build this protocol was hypercharging with crypto and allowing ourselves to have this like [1:19:43] new kind of war game like to me my thesis with pixie was just that [1:19:47] Crypto itself was really fun. Crypto felt like one massive game to me. [1:19:51] And, you know, [1:19:53] what users want is really simple. They want to make a ton of money and they want to have a really fun time trying to get rich. And once you understand that and believe that you're free to just like, let's get rid of all the boring stuff. Like I don't actually care about [1:20:05] you know, yield or all these sort of things. [1:20:08] replace all that with chess and like crazy animations and more and suddenly it's like all the things that [1:20:14] you know, you're used to when risking in crypto, but more fun, more exciting, you know, more fair, more interesting, more skill based, more tactical. [1:20:22] whatnot. So, I mean, we kind of view our company as like risk merchants and we're trying to make the best risk for our users. That to me has been the sort of, [1:20:32] core customer demand that the more trading degenerate side of crypto has always been chasing. And we think we have that here. I love this tweet from Quasimatt that said, I'm not good at chess, but I have to say I'm interested in the concept of it being even more complicated, which is a funny thing to say. [1:20:51] And I think... [1:20:52] I've heard you talk a little bit about sort of how much of an objective failure, like 2021 game was. [1:21:01] Crypto gaming. Yeah. Was like absolute flop. And how do you see this being different than that era? Yeah. I mean, those are two different things that are fun to them both.

[1:21:10] The reason why I think Game 5 failed is that, you know, what I was kind of saying before, like... [1:21:15] Crypto is the game. You know, people are playing this massive online MMO when they're on crypto. Yeah. And their demands are really specific. Like people that are trading crypto, they're not there to like – [1:21:26] you know, their demands are clear. We talked about it. It's, I want to get rich and I want to have an adventure doing that, trying to get rich. That's a different demand from someone who's like, I'm going to play League of Legends or like, candy crush on my phone for five hours to like forget about everything. And so you have to understand what your users want. And we think they want really good risk. And- [1:21:41] novel risk and exciting risk and fair risk. And so we're trying to build [1:21:45] you know, the best version of that. [1:21:47] I think quasi-mat is totally right. Like, it is a complicated game. But I think there's also some freeing elements of it, too. Like, chess itself has been around for so long. There's all these, like, things you need to learn. [1:21:56] And chess can be really daunting to people. And I actually think pixie chess is a really fun way to pick it up. The stakes are super low. You hop in. Nobody knows what's going on. And even if someone's really smart and has, like, figured out some pixie chess openings, we're releasing new pieces so fast that, like, if they don't check the site for a day, it's different. You know what I mean? So in a sense, it's like, yeah, is our strategy games complicated? Totally. But pixie chess is new and it's fresh and it's always going to be that way. And I think that's really enthralling to some people.

[1:22:26] or more crypto people? You know, it's actually like a pretty good mix right now. I think there's two requirements that we talked about. [1:22:32] The first is for someone to like Pixie Jazz is that you have to like enjoy strategy games. Yeah. Like deck builders, TCGs, that sort of thing. [1:22:39] Or at least be open to it. And then you have to kind of like want to make money because that's what crypto is. You know, no one's on crypto who's like, I'm not here to... [1:22:46] you know, play around with the future of money and play around with all these like novel financial experiments. So, and not make money. Yeah. I think for us, for us, it's, [1:22:59] You know, the goal kind of is like, how can we make something that's so sick and so cool? Yeah. [1:23:04] chess players who aren't into crypto are like all right i'll try this out and we're i think doing that a lot of ways like you don't have to spend money to play pixie chess [1:23:11] or do most of our modes. [1:23:14] And then we also want to make it so... [1:23:16] you know, it's, it's a game that someone who's like speculating and investing can still be like, oh, I can participate and like have a fun time doing this. So those are the two avenues that we're adding on to right now. Okay. So you launched last week. Yeah. What has gone wrong? [1:23:30] Mm-hmm. [1:23:30] I mean, a lot of stuff. I think it's, you know, you work on something for so long and then it hits the internet and the internet, you know, turns it to shreds. Humbling. It's a humbling experience. It's super exciting to see, like, what people are... [1:23:40] how people are interacting with it and like what they want. I think two things really come to mind. One thing I went on this other podcast and I was like, [1:23:47] There's no way to cheat in pixie chess. Like, engines don't work. Because the reason you can't play competitive chess online is because – [1:23:53] You can just use an engine. So, like, there's no way to play a tournament online, really, for chess. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, what do you mean an engine? It's, like, Stockfish. It's, like, a – it's not, like, an LLM, but it's, like, a Monte Carlo search tree that, like, figures out the best possible move. Is that new? No, it's been around since, like, IBM versus, like, Casper. Okay, I see. I see. Since we – since humans started losing computers in chess, you can't really do it anymore. Even real over-the-board tournaments are, like, rife with cheating.

[1:24:19] It's like a documentary that just came out about Magnus Carlsen. Yeah. Isn't he like a very – [1:24:24] polarizing figure. [1:24:25] Yeah, well, he accused him of a play of cheating as of late, so... [1:24:29] You just can't really play – [1:24:31] chess for money. So the cool thing about pixie chess is our new pieces are so cool. [1:24:35] Crazy and insane that they – [1:24:37] They make it impossible to calculate. Like, stockfish can't really calculate if you add, like, a ninth pawn. And we add in just, like, insane stuff. And we're always adding it. We also add in, like, RNG and, like, incomplete information. [1:24:49] So Pixie Chess is unsolved. It's not solvable. What do you mean? [1:24:52] What do you mean incomplete information? Like a piece that's invisible or like chess is like normally perfect information. Like, you know, it's not like, don't look at my side of the board. Yeah. But we're actually turning it into stuff like that. Point being, you can't cheat in pixie chess. And so I went on this podcast and I was like, you can't cheat. [1:25:09] But we got some learnings really fast at [1:25:11] If you don't use any pieces, you totally can. So, yeah, we quickly were like, okay, we have to delete some modes. We have to make it so everyone can use the pieces. And we make it so everyone has to use the pieces. Okay. So that was a really good learning for us. And are people buying the pieces or are they, like, winning the pieces? Yeah, and what is the – [1:25:30] money component where does that come to play yeah i was when i was playing it it was it i was able to just jump in exactly so every day we release these new pieces and you can hop into the auctions [1:25:40] have a little auction marketplace tab where these new pieces pop up. You can buy them there and you can also open packs and they just give you a random one. Okay. Yeah. So the pieces are sold during like a season. And then once that season ends, they're never sold again. Okay. Yeah.

[1:25:53] You kind of like... Our Pokemon lover, we got a little... [1:25:58] We got a little... [1:25:59] Fantastic. Well, I mean, we can rip some packs later on. You guys didn't lose all your eats. We have a little bit of eats to work with. Okay. Should we look at it? Wait, first, last question. Are you like a big chess guy? You like really into chess? [1:26:16] Sort of. You know, it's kind of work now. So I'm just kidding. I like chess. I'm not like a pro chess player, but I... [1:26:22] To me, honestly, I was always really fascinated with crypto. Like, there was points in this where we were like, [1:26:27] getting into an attraction and we were like people were like you should just take out the crypto elements of it you should make a really fun game okay i don't really want to make a game i want to make i want to make this monstrosity of like a internet war game basically so that was really important to me yeah yeah i think i was inspired by like a lot of these like [1:26:41] really weird experience kind of like FOMO, like, [1:26:45] 3D or like [1:26:47] This is just old stuff, but just like doing weird, you know... [1:26:50] novel structures on the internet this is the only place that this sort of thing could exist like we can't do this on steam they would take too much money there wouldn't be sort of a willingness to like speculate that could kickstart this system so yeah i think there's the only types of crypto protocols that are going to survive are ones that can only exist on crypto yeah this is an idea that can only work using crypto really yeah cool um okay i do want to just ask you before we get into i'm also really nervous to share my i'm genuinely very nervous to share my screen but i mean trauma [1:27:20] Do you have a wallet on there that's attached? Um...

[1:27:24] I, well, I signed in. Should I do that maybe offline? No, no, that's fine. Do you, can you click your, did you sign in with Privy or did you sign with a real wallet? I signed in with Privy. Oh, nice. Did you fund your wallet at all? I did not, look. [1:27:35] Okay. Do you want me to send? How about I'll send you a little bit? [1:27:40] yeah why don't you play the video while we get this set up yeah yeah play the trailer cue the trailer guys we're doing stuff [1:28:02] Thank you. [1:28:32] We'll be right back. [1:28:41] Okay, we're back. Wow, we're back. What a trailer, am I right, guys? Great, great trailer. Did you guys actually get to watch that trailer? We did, yeah, yeah, it's really great, it's really good. [1:28:49] I really like the logo. I think the logo works very good. Thank you. We worked hard on that logo.

[1:28:55] Just want to check, Kate, is it playing any music or anything with the Pixie Chess? [1:29:00] Why was I being up? [1:29:02] Great. Let's play some music. [1:29:03] I don't know that we can, but... Okay, so here we are on the... [1:29:09] uh pixie chess homepage amazing yeah yeah um just so you know what's being shared is right here [1:29:13] dot com it's just pixie chess dot xyz xyz okay suing you guys don't even i'm sorry i'm sorry um okay so you land here and then [1:29:25] uh let's walk through the site first i guess a little bit you can scroll down honestly so every day we hear here every day we have all these new pieces these are all new uh maybe like click the fish that's a cool one to do [1:29:36] You can kind of see like what it does, a little art, and there's like a video on how it works. The fish is really neat. [1:29:41] Oh, people are buying it. Yeah, of course. Okay. That one people are... Oh, and so it can move in a certain way. This is what this is demonstrating. It can jump up. Oh, this is like that other... The little description. Is there only one of each piece? [1:29:54] uh no so we saw that like scroll up real quick to the auctions you can close this tab okay [1:29:59] So we sell these like we'll do four new ones every day. And so this is what this is what is for sales. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. And anyone can go and buy it. It's not just one. Yeah. But it's only available for that day. Sometimes it comes back during the season once or twice, but then it's gone forever. Okay. If you go and click the pieces tab, you can see all the pieces. Okay, great. [1:30:19] a lot. [1:30:21] Okay, so these are past drops that people are playing. Some of them are past, some of them are current, some of them are future. Oh, coming soon. These are kind of all season one.

[1:30:29] The season one release. Okay, so you guys are in a seasonal season. [1:30:32] What a seasonal calendar, yeah. What's the season? [1:30:35] The season just runs. It runs for about a couple months, basically. We haven't decided exactly when. Got it. Nice. And when is the tournament happening? Go click tournaments right now. [1:30:44] So all the money that we get from... [1:30:47] People buying pieces go straight to our tournament, to our vault. [1:30:50] And that all goes out to users via tournaments, via prize bowls. So we have like free tournaments. We've got huge tournaments. We're about to release a mini version of tournaments called Brawl. [1:31:00] So one of our other problems that we talked about was that [1:31:02] People who suck to chess were like, I can't really play this for money because I'm getting crushed. So we've done a lot of work into making... [1:31:07] elo based matchmaking so if you're terrible chess you're getting paired up with someone else who's terrible to chess okay great and if you lose that person you're playing someone even worse to chess okay we will make you we are we are making sure that you will make money on this protocol um okay and so this is like upcoming this is an upcoming tournament yeah that one's like this and then people it's like [1:31:29] bracket tournaments like you play so why don't you click that one okay [1:31:33] And then... [1:31:34] Try and join it. [1:31:36] You can't right now. Try. Yeah. Cause you don't have any pieces. Okay. Let's go to the marketplace and we will open some packs and some pieces. [1:31:44] So this is like a mystery packet. I mean, you can take it. If you scroll down, these are all the ones for sale. [1:31:50] Yeah. [1:31:51] Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Fish. [1:31:53] or okay or you can mint some mystery packs oh i i feel like a mystery pack okay great

[1:32:00] Very good. [1:32:02] You guys are a little shy on crypto for running a crypto podcast. I know. Tell me about it. I just – [1:32:09] I can't have what happened. [1:32:11] Oh. [1:32:13] whoa the blade runner that's a kind of complex piece but that's pretty okay what's it how does it what does it do well why don't you uh view and collection okay [1:32:22] Does it pop it up? Click it. [1:32:24] Oh, you know, you might need to go to the pieces, the pieces. Okay, great. That's a great feedback point, actually. [1:32:28] Click the Blade Runner right there. [1:32:30] Okay. [1:32:31] Nice. Kills only by passing through enemy pieces. [1:32:35] The killed piece is captured a turn later. So scroll down. You can see a little bit. I see. So this one like jumps through enemies to kill them. It's kind of like a samurai. You know, like slices. Oh, oh. And then they only realize they're dead a second later. OK, we did here. Yeah. [1:32:49] So it can move diagonally. Exactly. It's a bishop, but it's sort of like the new abilities that it can only capture by going through. Okay. Are all of them... [1:32:59] Existing pieces plus. [1:33:00] They're all... They have like a root piece? Yeah, basically. Some of them are totally novel that have crazy things in to slot in, but generally you're replacing normal chess pieces on your board. [1:33:09] with these new pieces i see them and you swap them in so we'll see all that why don't you go mint a couple more and then we'll play a match okay okay great how where should i go back to pieces back to the marketplace back to marketplace okay great all right let's just keep ripping bags let's rip another really valuable one like a bouncer would be fire like a basilisk okay then can you sell these pieces yeah exactly i mean people always also like trading all the time nice okay that was a really great one

[1:33:35] Great, great, great. [1:33:37] Fire. You can just keep minting packs, I think. Oh, yeah. No, it does show that. If you hold your mouse down, it shows you how it works. At the start of the game, it transforms into a random pixie chest. Oh, this is a mystery pack. [1:33:49] Mr. Peace. Yeah, this piece, like, transforms into a random piece. It's a pretty fun one to use. Nice. It's like the Uno four-color. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and as you guys are doing this, when you're playing, when you're... [1:33:59] You're playing one-to-one still. It's still chess in the sense that, like, I'm playing one other player at a time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then that person's going to have a deck of crazy pieces, too. Okay. So you not only need to have some familiarity maybe with your pieces, but also what their pieces can do as well to be strategic. You're kind of figuring it out on the fly, yeah, because some of these deck combinations have never been played before, ever. Okay. I think you can knit one more, and then let's hop into a game now. This one, the Aristocat. [1:34:26] That one's kind of mid, honestly. We should knit one more. I want to, like, a fun one. I want to rip, like, a super expensive one. Then we can be like, yeah. Okay. [1:34:33] Mysticrat's cool. It's just, like, it's a pretty complex, like, mechanic. Yes. Okay. [1:34:37] I mean... [1:34:38] You built it, so. I mean, I don't even know the value of these. Like, some pieces that I think are really good, like, people say are, like, [1:34:45] terrible basically. Okay blueprint what this looks like a worker [1:34:49] upon style. [1:34:51] Nice. Yeah, this transforms into a piece next to it that it starts as. Oh, cool. Okay. Wait, wait, it transforms. Say that again? [1:34:58] Exactly, yeah, it's the ditto pawn really. [1:35:01] yeah how much do you have left you anything else [1:35:04] Yeah.

[1:35:05] It's cheap. [1:35:07] uh-huh okay great cool and then uh that should be a pretty good like starting set oh all right let's play ball okay [1:35:16] So play. Exactly. We could also burn for the tournament, but let's just hop in a game and play some matches. Are you paying when you play? Not at all. Quick play is totally free. The only difference is the pieces you've unlocked, you can use in quick play. Obviously, the best players who are trying to climb the elo, they use some great decks, basically. Okay, and right now there's almost 100 ETH in the pot. Yeah. Yeah. [1:35:39] And there's a tournament every day? Yeah, we're still figuring out kind of like our tournament structures and what has the most like... [1:35:45] like i guess pmf for users really okay suffice to say the important part of all that is coming back out to users okay and you burn to use the tournaments but for this mode [1:35:54] You can just use your pieces you've collected, and we also give you free pieces. Okay. Just like a daily free rotation. Okay, so I got a free camel, free icon. Yeah, you might want to start putting these on pretty fast. Oh, okay. How do I do? Drag that onto the board. Okay, great. I'm going to put them. And I'm just putting them all in. Yeah, you replace them for the swap that you, like the spot that lights up, basically. I see. Okay. [1:36:14] Oh, I see. I see. Why don't you put that queen on there, too? Okay. And then last one, you grab this pinata and drag it on there. Great. Then hit ready up. Let's go. Okay. That was timed. That was timed. Okay. Sweet. So we're in a game. Have you ever played chess before? Yes. Oh, amazing. Well, then you just got one of the best pieces in the game, I think, the anti-violence night. What's the anti-violence night? Basically...

[1:36:36] Anything it's next to, any enemy pieces it's next to, can't capture. They're disarmed. [1:36:41] Nice. Okay. It like makes them unable to do anything. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to go, I'm not going to go there because I know better. [1:36:48] Well, actually, hover over that piece really quick. Okay. [1:36:51] This one right there. [1:36:52] This. [1:36:53] That is an iron pawn. Oh, he can't be captured. So if you want to see all your pieces, you can hit tab or you can press that little button in the corner. [1:37:00] That one, the peace icons. Okay. [1:37:02] That pulls up all the pieces and all their abilities. Okay. Well, how about you? How, where would you go with this? [1:37:07] I suck at this game. Take it away. Okay. Okay. So is it my turn or is it? It's your turn. Yeah. Okay. Do you guys remember, um, [1:37:15] In Parks and Recreation, the cones of Dunshire. [1:37:21] um i feel like you don't remember the concept of the gun dryer thing okay um [1:37:26] Anyway, it's too complicated to really explain, but basically what happens is... [1:37:30] One of the guys... [1:37:32] that one that one is over build a board game and it's really complicated and then it gets like it's like massive basically [1:37:42] uh yeah are people making fun of me for how complicated this is no i'm just kidding [1:37:46] Not at all. [1:37:48] This seems like a very powerful piece that they have called the fission reactor. I don't want to get in its way. What does a fission reactor do? That one, if you capture five pieces, it blows up. [1:37:58] So it kills your own queen, but it also can, like, kill the opponent. Okay. So if she wins this, she just moves along in the tournament. She doesn't win money right away. This actually isn't a tournament. She's just playing quick play for fun right now. Okay, okay. This is just for funsies. She makes it really low. I see. Okay, okay, okay.

[1:38:14] Okay, but when you, let's say you are in a tournament, are you getting other people's... [1:38:20] money's you pieces pieces or money no no you okay you set your own deck basically and you use that till the tournament ends okay so if you lose a piece [1:38:28] This little targeting? Exactly. Okay. That to me seems like a signal. What if Deanna just becomes like a killer in Pixie Chess? Imagine I become the Pixie Chess champ. I think his bishop can take you there. Oh no. Oh, I just got... Okay, that's fine. [1:38:44] I [1:38:46] totally i i'm fine with i'm taking that but yeah in a tournament even if you lose a piece like for them you win the next match you still use okay basically yeah okay what if i what if i took this guy and i tried to capture this that would be awesome the only problem with the anti-violence knight is that [1:39:01] It's really overpowered, but it can't kill anything. [1:39:04] Oh. It makes sure that enemy pieces can't capture, but it itself can't capture. So if you jump right there. Okay. [1:39:10] the queen can't capture that pawn can capture you're perfectly safe but that piece is kind of like a support piece basically you're using it in like key situations to disarm the opponent i see [1:39:20] I see. [1:39:22] Okay, and all of these pieces... [1:39:25] are [1:39:26] Like, [1:39:27] NFT is in Dina's wallet, essentially. Exactly, yes. You can trade them, do whatever you want with them. Some people stake them out to players or like... [1:39:35] Oh, interesting. Collect and then build huge collections. And then there's a ton of trading. People are always trying to figure out. [1:39:40] Oh, nice.

[1:39:43] Oh. Yeah, exactly. Hey. See? [1:39:47] Okay. [1:39:49] uh does did this person put me into into check check okay that seems like a good movie yeah what if i put this there great look at me let's see the path [1:39:59] Um, [1:40:01] And this is just an Internet friend. [1:40:04] I have no idea who that is. Yeah, I guess that's something on your internet. Reveal yourself. Reveal yourself. We're about to add in a bunch of features. Like, we can't do a chat, but just, like, notes and stuff. So you can be, like, messing around with the other person. Why can't you do a chat? You want to chat too weird? It's a lot of moderate right now. Yeah, totally. Okay, I get that. For sure, for sure. People get really mad about chess, too. Yeah, people are, like, quite, can be quite mean. What do you think? [1:40:29] Okay. [1:40:31] We're going in for the kill. [1:40:33] um [1:40:35] And in... [1:40:36] It is just one turn per go, per round, right? Yeah, I mean, there's some pieces that can move, like, twice in a turn. But it's really just chess. Just you have to, like... [1:40:43] learn all these crazy pieces and build a cool deck that you like uh i've heard you describe it as like [1:40:48] there was once five card stud around poker. Yeah, exactly. And then Texas Hold'em came out. Yeah. And there was like this evolution of the game and now basically almost everybody just plays Texas Hold'em. [1:41:01] That would be a dream scenario for you. Yeah. I mean, I don't really think we're competing against chess. I think chess is like a language and a primitive. And people have like a big demand for chess content. Oh, wow. This is actually getting into a really complex. Okay. Should I try and take this person? Can I take that? Yeah, I guess you could trade queens. Yeah.

[1:41:15] Like that? Yeah. [1:41:18] Great. [1:41:18] That felt like the... Oh. No, I mean, it's fine. We got rid of their queen, too. Okay. [1:41:24] I don't. [1:41:25] This is a little bit of a lot to try and play a chess game and be on a podcast. Totally. Also, like, I... Launch a token and make a salmon bowl. [1:41:38] I also... I saw this thing that was, like, because people are using... [1:41:43] all these i forfeited if you don't mind oh that's okay that's okay i i'm doing a virtual handshake with my opponent you keep all those pieces this is just quick play great um [1:41:53] that because people are using AI to play chess, that... [1:41:59] all the moves are becoming like optimized so that when you have actually like a very bad player that comes into a game that does things that are like unexpectedly bad yeah but that actually like is a new type of challenge for chess players yeah playing with people who are really really bad oh wow we've also added in some pretty we're adding in some anti-cheat right now so for high level tournaments for like competitive tournaments [1:42:22] it's really not optimal to be, you can't really use an engine. [1:42:25] But just in case there's like even stuff going on in quick play now, we can do a pretty good job figuring out if someone's like comparing an engine move. Oh, I really just kick them and ban them from the game. OK, OK, I think we can take your screen down. I did. Oh, great. OK, last question for you. Congratulations on launching something. It's very hard to put something onto the world. And I hope you should feel. How do you feel?

[1:42:46] A little stressed, there's a lot going on, but we're shipping new features. We've got points coming, we've got brawls coming. [1:42:53] got a whole host of things. We just got an anti sheet last night. So I wish I could sleep more, but you know, Judy calls. Totally. Chess calls. Um, [1:43:01] Are you still in the trenches? Are you meme coin trading? No, I think to me, like, all of crypto is about finding some trade, and Pixie Chess has kind of been my trade. Like, this is the best trade I could think of. Yeah. Um... [1:43:13] And it's the one I'm making, so... Yeah. Yeah. I think even, like... [1:43:18] in a sense a builder is someone who has like extreme conviction on like one specific trade mm-hmm [1:43:24] It's kind of the equivalent of pouring all your money into something. You're talking your book. He's talking his book. Find your trade. Pause. [1:43:32] Okay, Joshua. That ain't true, right now. [1:43:36] Thank you for coming on. Of course. So fun. At least we didn't lose a lot of money. We actually made money on this one. Great. Great. I mean. [1:43:43] I'm not big um okay that's our show thank thank you so much for tuning in [1:43:50] See you later.