In this episode, we discuss fake LinkedIn Posts & DAO permissions leading to an Axie Infinity hack, the world's first NFT/web3 gaming console coming out in 2024, a new patent hints at Nike getting into NFT gaming, Chinese companies banning cryptocurrencies, Shanghai investing in the metaverse and so much more!

Episode 33 Keywords: fake LinkedIn Posts, DAO permissions, Axie Infinity hack, NFT/web3 gaming console, 2024, patent, Nike, NFT gaming, Chinese companies, cryptocurrency ban, Shanghai, metaverse

Welcome to the metaphysics podcast. The

Metaverse and web three are bringing about the biggest

revolution since the internet itself. With your hosts Paul the

prophet Dawalibi And Jeff the juice Cohen. We will be bringing

you the latest Metaverse, business news and insight into

what it all means. The meta business podcast starts now.

From the boardroom to the metaverse. This is the meta

business podcast. I am Paul the profit that will lead me. I'm

joined today by my friend and co host, Jeff the juice Cohen,

those of you who are new here, welcome to the official podcast

of the metaverse. What we do is we cover the most pressing,

Metaverse, topics and news of the week. But we look at all of

it through a business and C suite lens, we dissect, we

analyze the business implications of everything

happening in this industry. For our regular listeners. Thank you

guys for tuning in every week. Thank you for all the love. If

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people discover the podcast and please share the podcast with a

friend with a colleague if you're big into web three big

into Metaverse shared with all the people you know, and and we

appreciate it. Jeff, how you doing this week? I'm good. I

just got back from a week long trip to Paris. So I finally feel

like I'm a little bit rested. I actually moved into my new house

yesterday. Although currently there are only there we are

about 50% moved in now we still have a bunch of little stuff to

do. So I'm still a bit of a nomad in law's basement. But I'm

hoping by next week, this time we will be officially in and

then I can kind of put my feet up for like an hour and relax.

It's been a long month as a nomad some extent. I will say

I'm hoping by next week also, I will be back to proper studio

setup. So people should sort of apologies for the last few weeks

because you know, we're both in transit and in transition, and

hopefully be back to sort of the audio quality that people would

come to expect and things like that. But I was going to ask

you, are you fluent in French now? Like, there's no no issues?

No, no, but I do know how to say croissant ate a lot. I had a lot

of croissants, a lot of ham and cheese. I had a lot of Italian

food too, which I'm sure will not shock you, Paul, or anyone

who's listening who knows me. But I had a lot of Italian for

you. You may have missed the boat on that one. I mean, it may

be better opportunities for other cuisines in France. But

as long as you as long as you were happy you had a good time.

But you missed not you didn't miss what's happened while you

were away. And I think we need to break it down as we always

do. And I think we need to start with a story that we touched on,

in fact on a previous episode, and that was the XE infinity

hack. And finally, more details have come out in terms of how

this all happened, how it all went down, so to speak. And the

headline in this article is AXIe infinity hack committed via fake

LinkedIn posts, and Tao permissions. So x infinities

Ronin bridge hack started with a fake LinkedIn job offer

according to this article. And according to the US government,

the culprit was Lazarus group, which is a North Korean group of

hackers. Obviously 625 million was stolen. And the way they did

it was they set up fake LinkedIn accounts with fake job offers.

And Lord in AXIe infinity employees with promises of you

know, big salaries, big, extremely generous compensation

packages, to attract the employees. And then as part of

this job process, they did fake interviews. And and were sent a

PDF file, which was supposed to be the job offer.

And ended up being essentially the the file that hacked their

PCs. And by getting four of the nine validators of the ronin

network, they were able to get control of the network and steal

$625 million. So

you would think

to steal 625 million this would have been a massively

sophisticated you know, like you see in the movies, kind of

operation and reality it was just some basic social

engineering of LinkedIn. I'm curious what you think about

this one? Well, we had known it was social engineering but this

that level of detail here is is entertaining a funny and also

like a little bit scary because it's like it you can see a lot

of people falling for this right like I don't want you got to

feel bad for the guy who fell for this. Like I'm like imagine

going back into the work the next day. I mean, I don't know

if he still works there. I probably assume no, but like,

going back and be like, yeah, so not only was I looking for

other job, I also caused us to lose 625.

But having said that, like, it's not that outrageous to think

that, you know, if you're on the if you're an early member of sky

maybes team, I'm sure you are incredibly skilled. You were

very early to, you know, the metaverse early to crypto early

to plan on gaming. So it stands to reason that you probably do

have a lot of job offers coming your way, at extremely lucrative

compensation, like, I wish I wish we got more detail on that,

because I'd be very interested to see like, what are we talking

ridiculous numbers, like someone's like, Hey, you're

gonna make $18 million a year or, you know, something? Like,

I'm very curious to know what that actual number they were

kind of dangling there was, but it's not that original. It

sounds like they went through a very, like, reasonable interview

process. They still were incredibly prepared. As as

hackers to like, put that much effort into it. You had to

obviously, I assume make a website like you've probably had

to put a lot of effort into, because anyone who's getting a

job offer they're gonna Google okay, what is this company do?

Where are they? Are they on LinkedIn, they have employees.

So I assume that all of that kind of backstory had to be

there.

So you know, maybe they earned their 625 million just a little

bit. But

at the heart of it, honestly, I think it's a humorous story for

us on the outside. But it's also a cautionary tale, both for

employees, like do your due diligence, and your if you're in

this web three world and you're getting job offers, because if

it sounds too good to be true, it may actually be too good to

be true.

And then the other reason for caution is for companies like

maybe don't have it so that one employee can effectively break

down your entire security system if you're going to use a

permissionless blockchain and irreversible transactions on a

on a distributed ledger, like, like

mine. But yes.

That topic I think has been covered a lot and I think

actually are in time Amis have done a lot in since then to

bolster that security have have more nodes and have it be a bit

a bit less penetrable.

But yeah, I think that those are my takeaways. I'm curious what

you think. No, I like where you went with it. Like there's not

that much to break down here. It's sort of a funny,

interesting story.

There's not much like business discussion around it. I do think

there, you're where you're spot on is it's a bit of a cautionary

tale. And I think anything that touches the crypto world, people

sometimes have a false sense of security, right? Like it's

crypto, but it's in the world, right? It's by its nature

supposed to be very secure and,

you know, impenetrable, and, and in reality, and I think in the

context of Metaverse, this is truly where it's a cautionary

tale. And people need to be thinking about this as we build

out meta versus, and there's more at risk than even $625

million dollars, right? Where potentially there's billions,

trillions flowing through meta verses.

That anytime you have a human link in the chain, it's

vulnerable, right? Like you can have all the security in the

world, you can have as much cryptography as you want. You

can, you can have as many nodes, you can do all these things. If

you have a human being in the chain, there's a vulnerability.

And I don't think there's any way of ever getting around that.

And this is a pure, perfect demonstration of that, right?

Like, you can have this Fort Knox of digital security, but

you can easily manipulate the human brain, fortunately, or

unfortunately, and, you know, let's hope that this doesn't

happen again and that there are good lessons learned and people

are really careful next time but I think it's easy to say that

this will happen again in some capacity somewhere.

But good to be good to be in the know.

Let's move on let's talk about Polian Pulliam. This story was

interesting, Jeff, because he remember you and I talked about

the first web three phone. I think this calling themselves

the headline here introducing poleon One, the first web three

gaming console. And so what they're trying to do is

essentially here, I'll summarize the article create a console

that is capable of running games that are built on different

blockchains. So whether it's immutable X or Solana or

Aetherium, or polygon, or wax, or b&b, iOS harmony lists all

these.

You don't need to switch networks. You can run all these

games on all these blockchains from this console. And the idea

is to make it easy to use. It says for a traditional gamer who

doesn't understand web three. So the idea here is to bring mass

adoption of web three with this piece of hardware.

The gaming console says it says is designed with a fingerprint

scanner. So there is this level of security and it's integrated

With its own wallet, so you can make transactions when the

console is running.

Other than that, it looks very much like the controller looks

like a PlayStation controller, I think. And it looks very much

like a standard console. The release date is pegged for q3

2024.

With the initial consoles, reserved for holders of the

Polian Pass, which is an FP like access, of course, there has to

be an NFT to access it. Yes.

And there was one thing I actually clicked into the

article or the the medium posts where the petroleum team

described it, and they were talking about how it was going

to this was going to be built by the community, which I had I had

a great chuckle about we always talk on our on our other

podcasts about Doctor disrespect and how he's, you know, his

company right now midnight society is building a game built

by the community. And it's like how do you build a game by the

community like it's almost impossible in corporate Daventry

back. Imagine building a console a piece of consumer electronic

hardware by the community. What do you get? Like? How is that

possible? What chips should we use? Let's let's run a poll in

our Dow to see what technology we should use. Like, it just

doesn't. You know, it's one of those things where it's like you

almost hope they're just saying that for lip service? Because if

they actually try to incorporate that it will be even more

ridiculous than them just saying it. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel pretty

similarly, I guess about this that I did with the phone, like

this all to me feels like a software solution. Like I do

agree that if we're if we do get to a point where web three games

are good enough, and people have this hunger for this, and they

really want them versus web two games, it will be a software

solution. Right? Like, I just don't see why you need a piece

of hardware, that and maybe it's because I'm not understanding

the technology enough. And you probably have better

understanding of this than me. So correct me if I'm wrong. But

what makes something a web three console? Like, why couldn't X

Xbox or Sony, just say, Okay, we now enable you to do this, you

know, crypto payments alike, to me, it's a payment, this is a

payment provider, that you've then wrapped into a piece of

hardware that you're going to have to make, it's going to cost

a ton of money. And you're gonna have to get into people's homes.

Like, what are the odds that even if people want to play

crypto games, they're not going to do it on this console. And

these crypto developers are not going to develop for this

console. Like we see this all the time. Like it goes back to

state it's a stadia again, right. It's like this may be in

I have a lot less confidence in this team than I did in Google,

in the ability to actually build technology. That you know,

stadia technology is good. And it failed, because didn't have

content. So the odds of polam one, being able to build a

better console and Xbox, Microsoft, Google and Nintendo

is just zero like it just by the way is all lose money on their

consoles, right? Completely zero, and they have no content

attached to it. No first party studios, no exclusive content.

So as I'm talking about a more though, the more angry and less

bullish, like the more bearish I'm getting,

I think is interesting, in one sliver of what we talked about

at the outset, is the fingerprint scanner. Because I

think there's some rationale, we're okay, like, you have the

hardware, you know, the fingerprint scanner. And now you

know, who's actually buying the NFT. Like, that could be a

little bit of ease of use. I'll give them that. So I'm glad you

came around, because I was worried there for a moment that

I was gonna have to really viciously disagree with you.

Because I think this is probably the dumbest idea maybe I've ever

heard, maybe in the history of ideas. There's none dumber than

this other than, you know, stadia, which was maybe the

dumbest idea of all time.

This one, this one is such a head scratcher. And let me just

address your last one. Because initially, I was thinking, yeah,

maybe the fingerprint scanner is like the thing that's different,

right like that. I get it. Like to answer your question before,

which is, any console any piece of general computing hardware

can do everything this can if the software is written for it

to allow it right. Like, there's no reason why Sony couldn't make

their PlayStation play web three games, if they didn't want if

they wanted to.

The fingerprint scanner is sort of a unique thing.

But I can tell you this Sony and Xbox like Microsoft could easily

do this through their phone apps. In other words, you're on

the console, you need to you need to you know, verify,

validate, whatever, it'll prompt you on your phone on an app on

your phone, use the fingerprint scanner there, which every phone

has, and it'll be reflected back on the experts. This is done in

I've seen in many other scenarios, non gaming scenarios,

it works very well. So it's it's nothing really unique here. They

want to make consumer hardware which even the big guys like I

said, lose money on to play a bunch of really horrible games.

Today

makes no sense to me like, Well, why would you go make hardware

for this and, and their their stated goal also makes no sense

to me it says, We want to make like they want to build this to

make it easy to use for traditional gamer who doesn't

understand web three. I can guarantee you that traditional

gamer, when December rolls around, and it's Christmas, and

they're going to buy a console, they're going to look at the

shelf and go x Xbox, PlayStation, or polio or

whatever.

I wonder what's the what's the button purchase decision they're

gonna make? Like, let's this is only going to be for the most

hardcore of web three gamers, which is such a small group of

people. It's laughable.

I don't know, this is why this is still a PC, they probably

better off using a PC. Yeah. So in your mind is this Do we ever

after this story? Will we ever talk about the poem? One console

again? Do you think we'll hear hear more about it? Do you think

they'll announce exclusive games didn't go announce a nother

first party studio? Do you think they'll get more funding getting

it'll ever happen or not? We will hear about them again, a

year from today, where they're laying off the whole team. And

unfortunately, the project is canceled. That's that's when

we'll hear about them.

This has no future beyond that. If they manage to sell these

10,000 NF T's like lay there, there is a history of like

consoles that sold an initial run and then disappeared sort of

into oblivion. So maybe they make a few of them, and a few

people get them. And then no one ever talks about it ever again.

You just I just don't. I think it's a horrible idea. And it's

an unfortunate waste of people's time and resources.

All right, let's let's move on. Let's you mentioned I wanted to

actually skip ahead. I had a different order here. But you

mentioned Doctor disrespect.

And the doc is obviously a big fan of his I'm a big fan of what

he's accomplished in the gaming space. And

there's a story here which ties back to him. And it's an

interesting sort of NFT slash Metaverse story also. And the

headline here is newly published patent hints at Nike branded

video game NF Ts. So it says it looks like Nikes, the latest

company wanting to enter the NFT and video game markets with a

new patent filing that could include in game apparel. So

they talked about the world's first NFT console actually in

this article. But Nike has supposedly patented

basically integrating NF T's and a new kind of system for

integrating NF T's into video games. And Nike would do this by

court incorporating some of its branded shoes into the games. So

basically, you're playing a game like FIFA or Madden, and you

could buy Nike shoes as NF T's in those games. Now, why Nike is

filing this patent right now we can speculate. But what do you

think of Nike sort of throwing their hat in the NFT in the

video game ring here? Well, I mean, Nike has been pretty

forward, you know, on the like, I think they're they were pretty

early to hire someone they to be like a chief Metaverse, officer.

They also bought artifact. I'm pretty sure if you recall, so

like, and now artifact was like a digital, like a digital goods

more

designer, like almost like the Nike of the metaverse, if you

will. So they've definitely like kudos to them for being a big

company. And actually leaning into this and every step of the

way. I think they've been pretty smart with what they've been

doing. Like I think they're being aggressive, but yet also

like,

very, very focused and smart about it.

What was he gonna say? Let me ask you this general around. I

just I used to just remember my train of thought. It's a bit

surprising. I mean, you know, it's interesting that they're

doing this in sports games, because it's like, I don't

necessarily understand why this needs to be NFT. Right. Like

people are already buying digital goods in those games,

even shoes, right, I believe you can customize, you know, various

parts of your avatar, including their your clothing. So like,

why does it necessarily have to be an NFT in those games? I got

to I don't know that I see that that there's going to be enough

differentiation where you're going to need to trade them.

Like I think they'd be better off just selling a digital

version of the ship where there wasn't scarcity and it wasn't

connected to the blockchain. I mean, in the same way you could

buy a Valencia backpack the fortnight like why does it like

why didn't Mikey do a deal with fortnight you know

years ago to have Mikey close with the swoosh and you know

Nike backpack and Nike hat and like, like, cool Nike gear and

like your rights, you don't need the NFT at all.

It's interesting that they patent this now, they haven't

said that. The article mentions that the likely target is things

like FIFA and Madden. But you're right. Also, it doesn't

necessarily have to be. Here's the question I have for you.

Because this is the second time I heard Nike the same week, the

same week, and on the business of esports podcast, or our

weekly new show. Specifically, I should mention, we talked about

a story where

Dr. disrespect, who's a very well known gamer streamer on

YouTube.

He hinted we don't know if it's not confirmed, he hinted at the

idea that he was going to make a shoe with Nike, right? Like a

doctor disrespect shoe with Nike.

What do you think today sells better? The doctor disrespect X

Nike real shoe. Or if they do a an NF T shoe. And I think we'd

have to qualify the NF tissue where it is right? Because I

think it matters if it's in some random web three game versus if

it's in fortnight, or,

or FIFA or something like that. Right.

So but I'm curious how you break that how you would break that

tie? It's a great question. I,

my initial reaction was that the real shoe would do better. And I

think I will stick to that. But your last point about depending

on where it is, like I think if Dr. Disrespect put a Nike shoe

into fortnight that was branded Dr. disrespect, I think it would

sell very well, at a much lower cost. So you would sell more

shoes, but you would probably make less revenue, but you might

make more profit. So it was a little kind of like there was a

lot of nuance there. As a collector, what do I think? And

I guess this is this is another angle? What do I think would be

worth more a year after you purchased it? I think the

physical doctor disrespect shoe has a decent chance of becoming

a cool collector's item that people were fans might buy and

trade. I think the virtual NFT would be worth almost nothing

after people bought it. Unless there was an extreme amount of

scarcity and they sold two of them or something. And I tell

you why I hate the NFT because I I'm thinking about my own

question. And here's how I would have done it. Here's here's I

think the best case scenario, right?

They Nike launches the shoe with Dr. If I'm Nike I'm the CEO of

Nike tomorrow, and launch a shoe with Dr. disrespect, right? If

you buy the shoe, you buy the shoe, the real life shoe, you

get a code that allows you to get the same shoe in game in

pick the game that doctor disrespect plays the most like

Call of Duty, let's say right? Something like that some some

piece of Nike apparel and Call of Duty.

Only if you buy the shoe and every crypto person because you

could make it an NF t right? Like if you buy the real shoe

you give people an NF T. But like I think your average 12

year old couldn't care less about the NFT. And what I hate

about the NFT is all that will encourage that it's it's trade

ability. It's going to encourage scalpers to go buy all the

shoes, right? And then and then sell them at ridiculous prices,

as opposed to if you buy the shoe. And it's a code to

download the in game skin with no ability to trade or resell

it. Right. Like I guess with a code you potentially could but

it's more difficult, right? If you lock people in without the

ability to trade freely. I sort of feel like there's benefits in

this case. But then you're just turning it into like a digital

drop. Like we've seen this in fortnight for years. And I don't

disagree with you. I think that

generally, yeah, I'm fully agree. I liked the idea.

Yeah, yeah. They didn't do this.

I bought a Samsung phone. I can't remember which galaxy one

it was. But there it was, maybe the one from two years ago. I

bought the phone because with it, you got the exclusive Galaxy

skin in fortnight. But only if you bought the phone, which I

thought was cool. It was unique, right? And you couldn't get the

skin any other way.

I just I really challenge the crypto people who listen to the

podcast to think through the benefits of some of these

technologies to the end user because it's not well

articulated. And if if we don't see it, clear as day and Ken

articulated clear as day to the average 12 year old Right? Or

the average 65 year old on the other end of it

I think I think it's all a bit of fluff, right? Like I'm Nike,

I feel like has better things to do.

However, I do see a Metaverse universe world where you can buy

everything Nike you can buy in the Nike store. But for your

avatar like, to me, that's a no brainer. The technologies that

uses I sort of don't care.

Well, that's the whole point. The benefit then becomes why

does there need to be a blockchain? Why does it need to

be secondary tradable?

Right, and I do see that that that increases values because

you know, you're more likely to buy something you think you

could trade it. I just think the entire ethos of the metaverse

currently and the blockchain gaming world. It's all

financialization, where it's like, people aren't buying that

because they want it they're buying because they thought the

price will go until and maybe it's happening because maybe

this this is all getting washed out of the system a little bit

because people are, you know, prices have come down and FTE

sales have come down. But until that happens, I think I think we

can't move forward to really get like the capital and Metaverse

because, you know, it's like, every day when I go shopping, I

don't buy this t shirt that I'm wearing because I'm like, Oh,

next week Paul's gonna come and be like, this is worth 50 pounds

what it is now? No, it's I bought it because I'm a any

clothes. And b i think it looks cool. And you know, it was the

right price. And if it fits, yeah, it's not like, Oh, next

week, I'm gonna sell it for 10. That is the wrong mentality. And

as long as that mentality is the current, like meta, if you will,

I think we can't is we can't really move forward with a lot

of these technologies. But take, I'm going to clip that and I

think we need to put that out on socials. I think it's really

smart. What you just said, you captured it, I think, and I

don't think enough people are talking about that truly.

All right, let's move on to our last duo of stories here, Jeff.

We'll put two side by side here because they're both related to

China. And the first one is China NF TS Tencent. An app

group join industry pledged to ban cryptocurrency and fight

speculation. So it says here in the new self discipline

initiative, China's biggest tech firms agreed to enforce real

name authentication for NFT buyers and to avoid secondary

marketplaces. The agreement which is not legally binding is

an acknowledgement from the industry of regulations that

already exist in China for blockchain based assets. So

Tencent and and croup joining the fight and China to ban

crypto, and if you're buying NF T's there, your real name is

going to be exposed and you can't resell on, you know,

secondary marketplaces. So lots of restrictions. And then I want

to put this

sorry, before we go, there was there's no secondary trading

because that wouldn't sell well. It says to avoid secondary

marketplaces, okay, right. Because the your because your

real name is associated, I guess with the NFT. Now, it

discourages people from reselling for fear, I guess of

repercussions.

The second story is Shanghai to ramp up support for Metaverse

development, Low Carbon Project smart gadgets to help China's

economic recovery. So Shanghai plans to establish an industry

fund with around one and a half billion US dollars in assets

dedicated to Metaverse development. It'll help Shanghai

Foster 10 leading companies and 100 small sized firms, which

could launch 100, new Metaverse, products and services by 2025.

That's Wow, a lot of money, a lot of conviction there a lot of

companies potentially. So a little bit of two opposite

stories here read a little bit of a dichotomy, which I think is

interesting. On one hand, banning crypto discouraging NFT

trying to kill secondary markets, right? Attaching your

real name to those purchases so that they can find you and do

something bad to you. I don't know. Like, they want real

transparency, which is scary in a place like China. And then on

the other hand, you have Shanghai, devoting billions to

building Metaverse stuff.

Explain this, Jeff, how can we have these two stories side by

side? Well, Paul, I want to hear your take, because I think we

were discussing before that you may, you may have a hammer drop

here. But I you know, I think just to hit a couple the high

points. I mean, um, you know, I think we've been calling this

for a while that China would probably have their own version

of the metaverse just because of what they've done with with the

internet censorship and the government. So we sort of always

had the feeling that like, whatever whoever was the

ultimate winner of the metaverse in China would probably be a

quasi kind of government run entity. So I'm not

shocked that that it's interesting, you know, not

shocked that Shanghai is is investing into Metaverse

projects.

That's not surprising. It is interested in talking about low

carbon projects. I don't know if those are necessarily the same

because you know, the metaverse particularly if you include

crypto probably is not

Maybe not great for the environment. So it's kind of

ironic that they throw that in there. The other story about the

censorship on the fence on that one, I mean, I think there's a

lot of benefits to you people using their real name on the

internet. I think a lot more.

A lot of the issues on the internet and on social media

would probably be decreased if more people were required to use

their real names and not necessarily hide behind

anonymous accounts or just be vile and have no no

consequences. So I do I do like that. To some extent. It brings

up an interesting point about the metaverse like, do you think

in the future of the metaverse? Will you be able to hide behind

an anonymous avatar and just be a terrible person? Or will you

be will it be linked?

And then the last piece that you know, we were tying the

metaverse and crypto very closely here, I'm curious, we've

skirted around this issue for you know, 30 episodes. Curious

if your thoughts on that have evolved? Like do they go hand in

hand? Or are they maybe not completely like a suit? Good,

good thoughts and good questions.

Let me answer the first one, which is,

do I think we need to use our real names in the capital M

metaverse? I think probably not right. In my mind. I understand

the benefits of doing that. But I think it also defeats the

purpose, right? Like if we're going to create this alternate

universe that we can escape into

tying it to who I really am, in some ways, you lose. I think

that a little bit of the escapism, right? Like I may want

to be I may be the straightest arrow, you know, boy scout in

the real world. But maybe in the metaverse, I want to be a

pirate, right? Like, I don't know, maybe I just decided I

want to be a pirate and

you know, not in the criminal sense, but you know, dress up

like a pirate talk like a pirate. But you know what I

mean? Like, just maybe that's my thing and my character and the

place I want to escape to. And that should be okay. Right.

Like, people want to go to the office on Monday shouldn't know

that. I'm Paul the pirate.

And then, on the second question, I think

you're right. I think it's it's an important distinction to

make, because I think a lot of times this does get skirted

around. And it's important that I think we put at least I put my

foot down in terms of my thinking on this, which is you

the metaverse can and will exist or can exist, I should say,

without crypto. Crypto is not a necessary component of the

metaverse or for the metaverse to be successful. We could

create holodecks, which is my vision of the metaverse, we

could create

Mark Zuckerberg vision of the metaverse we could create Ready

Player ones vision of the metaverse we could create snow

crashes vision of the metaverse like every Metaverse that people

have conceived and dreamt about. All of them can exist without

any semblance of crypto whatsoever. Crypto is not a

requirement. What has happened is the crypto people. And please

don't take any offense from this. Have co opted the

metaverse, because crypto people for years now have been

searching for their killer app. The thing that brings crypto to

the mainstream, and they're desperate in this search, right?

Because crypto was supposed to put all the banks out of

business, and it hasn't yet. Crypto was supposed to put you

know, all government treasury like all the the economic sort

of foundations of governments out of business. He was supposed

to make paper currency go away, right? Like the promise of

crypto, while I do believe will be realized has not yet been

realized. And so crypto people over the years have gotten antsy

and are looking for that killer app. And all of a sudden,

Metaverse and gaming are the hottest things on the planet.

And so the crypto people like Wow, well, we can do that.

Right. And let's just we've ourselves into that narrative.

And, and they don't have to exist in that narrative. They've

they've chosen to exist in that narrative. And people have put

them together, because the conversations get muddled a bit,

but I'm here to say, I feel very firmly about this. The Metaverse

can exist without crypto. I think if anything, crypto will

end up being just like the payments layer for the metaverse

because it makes sense. It's digital first and things like

that. But I can see how China can refuse one and accept the

other because they are different than distinct and it's

interesting that China has sort of taken the stance, anti crypto

anti NFT pro metaverse.

I don't know if you agree.

I totally agree. I

I think that was incredibly well said, clip that throw that on

all the hot takes. No, I don't have much more than that. I

think that was really well said. I think it it's been something

we've been flirting around and trying to, you know, really put

together our our comprehensive like ideology and then you know

as maybe these thoughts can change I know that that's that's

your your thoughts you know, maybe Maybe mine will change at

some point. But

I think right now what you said is absolutely right. It's crypto

latching on because they're looking for a killer app and

they haven't found one yet. I think that was like a spike that

really resonated with me. But look, I would love I would love

to hear what our listeners think or viewers think I would love

their opinions. If you disagree. That's even more fun. And that

wraps up this week's podcast, Jeff So as always, thank you

guys, thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in every

week don't forget subscribe to the podcast, hit the subscribe

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kinds of hot takes all the time at Jeff Cohen 23 Don't forget,

and the most important thing guys, the future is fun. We'll

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