In this episode, we discuss Imagination Gaming launching a Bored Ape board game, Noah Davis leaving Christie's for Crypto Punks, Mark Zuckerberg envisioning big spending from Metaverse consumers and predicting a billion metaverse users, Microsoft and Meta creating The Metaverse Standards Forum, Solana Labs aiming to make Web3 mobile phones, and so much more!

Episode 31 Keywords: Imagination Gaming, Bored Ape board game, Noah Davis, Christie's, Crypto Punks, Mark Zuckerberg, Metaverse consumers, Microsoft, Meta, The Metaverse Standards Forum, Solana Labs, Web3, mobile phones

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 Prophet Dawalibi. I'm joined

today by my friend and co host, Jeff, the juice Cohen. For those

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

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

Metaverse, news and topics of the week. When 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 leaving a five

star rating and review. I read all of your reviews guys, I read

every feedback you leave on the podcast. We really appreciate it

when you show love when you subscribe when you leave a

review. Or even better just share it with a colleague with a

friend. If you love the content, if you love the podcast sharing

it is the absolute best way of showing that love. Jeff, how you

doing this week? I'm very good. We were recording on a special

day today. Arguably the most special day of the year. My

birth knows the most, you'd be a little bit biased.

And by the way, I forgot to say last week congrats on 30

episodes. This is episode 31. But like kind of a small

milestone 30 episodes pretty big. I think for podcasts. 30

episodes is big that the podcast is growing, we're getting a lot

more listens. You just mentioned actually in the pre show that

we're now getting requests for people to come on and be

interviewed. So I'd be curious, you know, to the regular

listeners, like let us know if you want us to have people on as

guests and interview them. And then also who you'd want. We've

had some some great people write to us and say they want to come

on as guest. But it would be great to hear from our

listeners, like other people you want us to try to get if we go

down that path, we'd love to hear feedback.

Yeah, I think that's such a good point. I mean, we've held off

because, you know, we've had this format, and it's been

working and people like it and it's, you know, been snappy and

punchy. And it's a bit shorter than your usual podcasts maybe.

But, you know, there's been, like you said, so much inbound

interest, people in the web three world in the metaverse

world in the crypto world in the NFT world you name it all sorts

of asking to be on the show. And I think we're open to it right I

think it's all going to depend on the kind of feedback we get

from from you guys from the listeners and

if you want to see it or hear it or not. So I will say an empty

world I hear you're now a famous NFT subject if you will, I

already was just to be clear, to be clear.

We we mented the world's first esports NFT and so like if you

want to be the the absolute if you want to be the collector of

all collectors you know the creme de la creme of collectors.

That's the NFT you want to having said that you know I I

was supposed to be speaking at an ft NYC this week. I'm not

there, obviously. But they minted like 10 NF T's for every

speaker who's there. And I was surprised to see that people

claimed my NF T's right? This is just my face, which arguably is

maybe the best subject matter for an NF T but

it was it was interesting to see. I will say though I still

believe the one to own is the world's first esports NFT you

can go on open sea you can check it out history it was history

making no one had ever done this before in the esports world and

that's the one you want to own if you're a real if you're a

real collector

for these days.

I am not sure yeah, I've actually I feel I'm sorry like

you put me on the spot they actually I'm not sure it's some

reasonable amount given the historic nature Well,

price on it so I can't

the price is too low right regardless of what it is. That's

just

All right, let's get let's get to news we got so much to cover

this week.

And in fact, I want to start with some board apes speaking of

NF T's let's start with you know maybe the biggest other than

other than mine of course and and that is the headline here

imagination gaming partners with board a community to launch a

papalii game. So the first ever NFT inspired board game and I

don't know if this is purposeful spelling here I am guessing it

is obviously it's in quotes

will feature 22 board eight caricatures with

Chance for players to win exclusive board a yacht club

NFT. So it's a board game, it features board apes. And you can

win an NFT. I'm not sure how, you know via presale, they're

pre selling it via a papalii.com. If you're really

interested in this, I don't know if it's loosely based on

monopoly. I'm not sure what the the rules of this tabletop game

are.

But it is a tabletop game, it is a board game, using board eight

characters. What do you think of this? Jeff, other than the

fantastic Pong, I love the Pong. I'm always a sucker for fun. I

like to board eight is expanding the IP into different areas.

Like I think, you know, the fact that they're, they're bringing

it on the board game is interesting. I just don't know

how big what is the overlap between board eight fans and

that that, you know, mindset versus people who play board

games and tabletop monopoly. Like, I suspect that the number

of people who are fans of board eight is not, it's not tiny, but

it's not huge to begin with. And then the overlap between those

people and the people who are really hardcore into monopoly

and like, board games has to be very low. So I wonder if they're

gonna sell this as almost like a collectible thing. Because that

could make sense. They sell it at a high price. It's almost

like collectible. Because we know that the mindset of these

NFT collectors and the people who are buying board apes,

they're willing to pay up for something scarce in nature and

has value or even even more so like secondary market value. So

I can kind of see that. But if they're trying to make this like

an actual mass market product where like, you know, your

parents or my parents can walk into a CVS and like, want to buy

a board game, and they buy this instead of monopoly or glue or

whatever else. I'm not so bullish on.

Well, it does say it says that there's a quote here in the

article from the president of imagination, gaming, who they're

the partner that they're making the game with. And it says

beyond getting in on the board a pipe. The gameplay allows

everyone to learn a little bit about the crypto world, even if

you don't fully understand NFT jargon, or the cryptocurrency

world. I mean, I don't really buy that, right. Like, to me,

the audience for this is really, its collectors, it probably is

not a fun game. There's probably no one in this audience that

cares to play a tabletop game for the most part. And I feel

like this is just another collectible. And let's face it,

the people who buy board apes are collectors, right? They're,

they're paying for collectibles. This is just another collectible

to sell them.

100 No, I think I 100% agree with that. I wouldn't be

surprised to see these things selling on ebay make a limited

amount still selling on the secondary market for big dogs.

But yeah, to your point, it's a collectible.

I mean, they're pre ordering for $50. But it doesn't say if it's

a limited run or not. I'm not sure that I mean, again, it's

interesting that if the boxes fire, I bet you could buy it for

like 250 400 or sell it for that.

And I bet that they make a ton of easy money on something like

this just because people buy for this exact reason to collect it.

Now. You know, let's put the story next to another one. And

this one you spotted on Twitter, which I love. Let me show the

story first and then I'll show the Twitter post. The story here

was Christie's wonderkid no and Davis who sold that $69 million

people is leaving the auction house to lead crypto punks into

the future. Now, for those who don't know crypto punks, also

owned by Hugo labs, who owns board a yacht club. So same

company we're talking about here. And Noah as part of this

new new role, put out a series of tweets which I'm going to

read here. So he says I'm humbled and honored to announce

I'll be leaving my current post in July to steward the crypto

punks as brand lead under the umbrella of yoga labs. Before I

say anything else, it's important to confirm what we

won't be doing. Simply put, I will not F with the punks. What

does that mean? It means no punk punks on lunchboxes or cringe TV

shows slash bad movies. It means no arbitrary rushed utility or

thoughtless airdrops. It means if you love your punks because

they are what they are just punks. Then you and I see eye to

eye. The first thing I will do is this. If you're a punk holder

and you care about the legacy future of the brand, I want to

talk one on one. I'll be at the punks brunch during NFT NYC and

will begin scheduling sit downs immediately. Wherever punks go

the community will help guide us now. He says a bunch of other

things but that was the gist of this

What do you think of his comments, Jeff? Especially

compared to the last story where we saw you collapse? Again, the

company he's just joined this call it selling out in the way

he says he's never gonna do with the board apes IP?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I understand this, when you own an

IP, you know, one of the ways to monetize it is through these

various different channels. You know, for game movies like this,

this is a Disney strategy, right? They literally coined

that right, you have an AI, dicing exactly the, that's the

perfect word merchandising, put in store and make stuff down on

when you make a ride at theme park. And for a long time, I

feel like we were hearing that these crypto brands were

becoming IPs. And then they were going to do that exact

merchandising strategy, there was going to be a video game, it

was going to be a movie. And if you own the the eight, you would

be able to use your aid in those things. And you would get

merchants you would get

you would get revenue shares from which to some extent made a

little bit of sense, if you assume that these things

actually are right. He's not sure how much I buy into that. I

think the top couple are fairly well known amongst people like

us who in this world, but I don't think they're, you know,

it's not Mickey Mouse, let's put it that way. So I'm a bit

surprised that, you know, he feels that this is what the

community wants, and that there's this backlash to using

their the, what is an IP as actually an IP to make revenue.

So I'm surprised it's one thing to be thoughtful like, I

understand if his point was like, Look, we're just not going

to be crazy about it and make it just completely in your face and

try to monetize something I can I can get behind that like being

being careful with using the IP, like anyone who owns a valuable

IP would agree that's but to completely be dismissive of it

is just a bit a bit odd to me. And it kind of maybe it speaks a

little bit to who's buying these things just like sort of a

vanity project. They don't even care about getting revenue

stream like a revenue stream or like making returns. It's just

like a, it's really just like a show me good that people buy.

Yeah, I mean, I take serious issue with the word wunderkind

in that title, right? Like, I don't know the guy, maybe he's a

genius in other ways. But if you're if your only point of

reference is he sold the people for 69 million bucks. I mean,

this is a piece of art that was sold at peak hype, right to some

moron who like thinks this is going to be worth 10 times this

in the future. Like is it's pure luck, right? Like it was right

place right time. So give him credit for that. But like, this

is not a strategy. This is not a business model. This is not that

he has no plan to actually build a business here. All he's saying

is I'm going to do nothing and hope the value of these things

increases, which maybe a year ago, that was the strategy in

you know,

June, almost July 2022. I think this is this is lunacy, right?

Like, this just does not work anymore, that we're we're past

the point. We have to be past the point of this greater fool

theory, which by the way, Bill Gates, you know, said the same

thing that I've been saying for the last year or two now.

That, you know, we have to get past this and there has to be

real business. And there can be we just talked about a papalii

Like, it's silly, but people will probably buy that. And you

know, the merchandising thing was an old Spaceballs Mel Brooks

reference, but it works. Disney has shown it can work. Right?

And, and, and you're right, maybe we're reading too much

into his words, maybe he means he's only going to do quality

partnerships and IP extensions. But I don't think that's what he

means here. Like, I think this really is like, I'm gonna do

nothing. We're just gonna, it's all about the punks and we're

going to see this you know, we're going to ride this to the

moon kind of mentality that

has got a lot of people in trouble, and I think has

destroyed a lot of value over the last two or three months.

And instead should be embracing sort of how do we how do we

extend this IP this brand? To 100 different things and

maintain the quality? Show me that strategy right? How do we

make great things with the crypto punks IP as opposed to

and gotta respect the quotes below to start a new job and

saying look, I'm not gonna do a

one on one meetings

NFT NYC

I'm not gonna do anything.

Yeah, I don't know. It's weird. And it's like this is gonna

backfire. So interesting. We hired a guy whose background is

you know, he was he built a digital auction shirt like maybe

that should show in and of itself like where where there

you go labs his mind is in terms of this whole strategy.

Like, why not hire someone? A product leader at Disney or

someone who's built, you know, like, like, someone who

thematic universe stratagem and like a brand expert licensing

expert, like someone like that. It's like, No, you hired a guy

who ran an online auction house. What does that have to do with

building like an IP brand?

Well, this is why I think this comes to a head, right? This has

to, because you've got bored apes on one side, merchandising,

monetizing, doing brand extensions, I think we, we

talked about a TV show or like a few episodes ago, now this eight

papalii. And then on the other side, you've got crypto punks,

and this guy who, you know, this is like, this is religion. This

is not business. And, you know,

when it's all about the brand, and okay, that's good. But like

if you do nothing with it, and you don't sell anything around

it, no, there's no business there. And I think those two

cultures, those two viewpoints have to clash at some point. And

we will, I think, I think you will see someone get ejected or

people get ejected as a consequence, I don't think you

can maintain two radically different strategies within the

same company forever. So we'll be seeing which one it will be

interesting to see which one wins out. I suspect, investors

are going to want to see the broader merchandising not rely

on some Yes, the greater fool Let's hope the the apes we

bought keeps going up works in a bull market. And the people who

own the apes are like, Well, I'm only going to own this for a

little bit. I don't care. I'm just watching go up. I'm

watching secondary market prices go up. I'm getting rich. You

know, don't worry about doing anything like don't ruin the

brand. You have a great thing. As soon as that reverses. I

suspect it has I haven't looked at the prices, secondary market

prices of these things, but I'm sure they're down. You know, 50%

Plus, as soon as that happens, you start having the bag holders

who own these things. Start saying, Okay, well, I bought

this for a million dollars. It's now apparently worth 200 grand.

Get me some utility for it. But in removing dividend checks, get

me some revenue, like let's make this a thing. So I suspect this

conversation is going to get turned around very

interesting. It's an interesting one of those very interesting

wants to follow to see how it plays out. Let's talk about two

stories from the maybe the the biggest personality of all in

the metaverse space. And that's Mark Zuckerberg himself here.

And two stories coming out of meta this week. Let me start

with this one. Jeff. The headline here Mark Zuckerberg

envisions a billion people in the metaverse spending hundreds

of dollars each. So he told CNBC is Jim Cramer that Mehta

platforms is in a position to spend extensively on long term

research, and that the metaverse will usher in a massive economy.

He thinks they're gonna get a billion people doing hundreds of

dollars of commerce. And this is a quote from Mark, each buying

digital goods, digital content, different things to express

themselves. So whether that's clothing for their avatar or

different digital goods for their virtual home, or things to

decorate their virtual conference room, utilities to be

able to be more productive in virtual and augmented reality.

And across the metaverse overall.

You know, let me just put that next to let me put the two

stories together here because I think both are interesting. Back

to back here. The other one is, Zuckerberg details this plan to

move your digital items across the metaverse. So what happened

is they've rebranded Facebook pay has become meta pay, but the

idea is to make it a wallet for the metaverse so that you can

manage your identity, your items, your payment methods, all

within meta and the metaverse.

So you know, a sort of wallet and payment solution slash

standard for the metaverse. What do you make of soccer Berg's

prediction here, the billion people, the hundreds of dollars,

the things they're going to do? I mean, I know it's sort of a

big, big topic. Jeff, if he had said this a year ago, I think

people would have probably been surprised, but at this point,

like I've read that headline and was like, okay, or is that

surprised? Like, I don't know if anyone's at this point,

surprised that that's their goal, or that we expected that

will happen. Right? Like, the question is really then becomes

well, how long will it take? But I don't think either of us are

wouldn't be surprised at all. If we're in the future, five, seven

years from now, and there's a billion people who are

interacting with the metaverse on a daily basis, and you know,

spending hundreds of dollars. I think that's even very

conservative. I think once you get the people in the metaverse,

they're going to be spending way more at they'll be spending

whatever they would normally spend in the real world

basically in the metaverse, so I don't think that's surprising at

all. The piece that was interesting was in the article

they talked a bit about the Oculus, headsets and the talk

Too little bit about how the shipments have been a bit

disappointing after like the holiday season. They said

shipments of headsets have failed out number shipments of

PCs or smartphones. It's not shocking. But I do think that's

that's the area where I feel like Mehta is going to have the

biggest struggle where they've really tethered their whole plan

to the quest and to VR, which I think is ultimately potentially

going to be their downfall. As well as the fact that I just

think the medicine brand meta, and Facebook's brand is so bad

right now amongst consumers. Like, I just don't know if

you're going to get the kind of adoption, even if they build the

best technical Metaverse, which they honestly probably end up

with, probably will end up doing just because they're investing

so much. I don't know if they're ever going to get the adoption

just because they feel like they have such a bad brand image. Do

you think that's something that matters? If you think it's, if

they build the best product, it won't matter? People will just

get over it and use it? Or do you think actually been

tarnished? You know, Jeff, I actually think my view on Oculus

relative to Facebook and betta is totally different on this

one. And that is because I actually think Oculus is is the

greatest most possible hardware is really hard, right? It takes

a lot of years, takes a lot of development and research. It

takes a lot of money. And I believe Oculus Mehta with Oculus

has at least a few year has started like I don't think

anyone's even remotely close. You could say maybe valve with

the index. But for the most part, Oculus is way ahead. Lower

cost hardware, better technology more portable, all these good

things right. And I think this is their mode because if we

believe Oculus is going to be the on ramp for the metaverse,

and the art is going to be the on ramp for the metaverse.

Oculus puts Mehta in a an incredibly good position. It's a

huge competitive advantage, etc. Right.

I think Oculus actually will probably go down in history is

maybe one of the best investments. In meta slash

Facebook's history. They paid a billion dollars for Oculus. And

if we believe there's going to be a billion people in the

metaverse if you believe Mark Zuckerberg is number here,

right? You're talking about a business not going to be worth a

billion dollars. Same at a business in just an Oculus.

That's going to be worth a trillion dollars. You're talking

about, you know, an installed base the size of Apple iPhones,

right? Probably a two or $3 trillion business. And so

I really do think Oculus is the feather in the cap for meta. I

think it's their big competitive advantage. And I also think it

to your, again to where I disagree with the point you

made. And I understand the concern. There's this reputation

concern with Facebook, right. But Oculus softens that a bit,

right, the kid who gets an Oculus for Christmas, he plays

with it. He's playing Star Wars. He doesn't know that it's

Facebook, he doesn't care that it's Facebook, right? It creates

a new perception of the brand and a new face for the brand.

And I think this is a good thing for them. But it's a good point,

right? There is this reputational risk with Facebook.

The question becomes that billion user number, right, does

that. Is that plausible? Is that reasonable?

You've got you know, how many Facebook users

maybe 2 billion to 3 billion billion, right? So you got to

think one out of every two, or one out of every three Facebook

user transitions to the metaverse.

Yeah, when you put it that way, it's a high it's a little bit of

a high bar.

But yeah, over the over the course of time, I definitely

believe you know, we're super bullish that they will hit that

note. Well, let me just take a step back. The Metaverse will

hit that number, will it be Facebook? That I guess I'm maybe

not as convinced as you are, but I think your points are valid in

terms of the brand softening. I do think that if you buy an

Oculus, you're probably not thinking about it as Facebook

problems. You know, if you're if you're a teenager in your early

20s You probably don't even know what Facebook is. You probably

don't think of Instagrams product either. So that's a

that's a fair point. And hardware is hard. So to the

extent that they are the best currently at VR hardware that is

a massive advantage that I guess I probably was maybe underrated

Yeah, I mean, let's let's talk about another potential

advantage here. And I think this story is an interesting one and

talks about meta again. The headline here is meta and

Microsoft team up to create Metaverse standards. Apple and

Google sit out. The group believes open standards will

help realize the so called Metaverse, so

bunch of companies are forming what they're calling the

metaverse standards forum. Meta is a founding

member big tech names like Adobe, Microsoft and Vidya also

founding members. But Apple and Google are not participating.

Now the forum it says is meant to foster the development of

open standards for the metaverse. They will explore

where the lack of interoperability is holding back

Metaverse deployment, and how the work of standards developing

organizations defining an evolving needed needed standards

may be coordinated, accelerated. You have Adobe epic, IKEA,

Qualcomm, Sony, like a bunch of big names, all part of this

forum. I'm curious, two things. What do you think of all these

companies getting together to create some standards? Or at

least trying to find some standards, Jeff, and maybe more

interesting? What do you think of Apple and Google sitting out?

So that was gonna sort of be my take? I definitely understand

its part, I want to hear your opinion, because this is

something you pounded the drum on for a while, even from really

like episode one on it's been all about comparing the

metaverse to the internet and how the Internet has, you know,

created standards. And that's really what these kind of open

open standards, and that's how the Internet evolved. So I

definitely want to hear your take on that. What I thought was

the most interesting part was who's not involved, as you

mentioned, and it's funny that it's actually the platforms that

are the biggest on mobile, and also the ones that are charging

these exorbitant kind of tape rates. So I just wonder if

there's some, you know, if that plays into the reason why

they're not jumping into these open standards, and non closed

guard, you know, walled garden approach of this, this Metaverse

that the others that maybe have a little bit less turf to defend

are kind of jumping into, you know, with open arms. So maybe

they're saying, Okay, let's, let's take a step back. We've a

pretty good thing on mobile here, you know, with these app

stores taking 30% Cut and no interoperability, like why don't

we just take a take a breather before we jump into?

I mean, you know what I love about the story, because we

didn't discuss this pre show that I knew you were gonna have

a totally different take on the why Apple and Google set out

like I there's probably like four or five different reasons

we could come up with. Right. And I think that's an

interesting one. I hadn't thought of that. But yeah, I

mean, they want to protect their walled gardens here. And any

kind of open standards may be bad for business in their mind.

To the standards point, yes, I've been beating the drum about

it. I think it's really just a question of, once you've seen

enough tech lifecycles like a different different technology

metas if you want to call them come and go.

The patterns are always the same, right? And new,

groundbreaking technologies, revolutionary technologies,

standards. I think you have to it was inevitable that it had to

get there for everyone to succeed for the vision of a true

capital and Metaverse to be realized. So I applaud this. I

think this had to happen. I'm happy it's happening. I think I

called it but Mehta was going to be leading the way on this. And

I think we will see great things from this group of companies in

terms of laying the groundwork for what will eventually be the

capital and metaverse.

Well, so my tinfoil hat theory came from, like my own

perspective, which is, I believe the metaverse gets built,

AI or evolves, not necessarily from a game, but from gaming

culture, gaming minds, gaming themes, right? Like the

metaverse truly is just a superset of gaming, or maybe

even a subset of gaming, if you want to call it that, right like

gaming. And the metaverse are intimately linked in my mind and

cannot be separated. And the two companies that sat out in my

mind, are the two big tech companies today that just don't

get gaming. They don't get it. Right. Google has tried and

failed miserably. Apple. I mean, you could argue they've sort of

tried but definitely not. Not.

Not like in sort of, in line with their resources and their

capabilities, right. They could be doing way more. And I think

it's to companies that don't have gaming cultures within

them. Like what with like, if you look at it, it's it's just

not their bread and butter. And it's not an area they

understand. And so I'm not surprised that they probably

won't really understand the metaverse either. I think it

just follows that they won't and they will be laggards in that

Metaverse discussion now could they catch up? Sure, right. Like

Apple's rumored goggles could be groundbreaking and everyone

wants them but I'm very skeptical because I don't think

they understand

Then gaming, either one of them all that well. And this is why

they sit out. That's my that's my tinfoil hat theory. That's

fair. I think that makes sense.

Yeah, it's an interesting one I like I said, I really hope, I

really hope it pans out to them building something, you know,

really cool. On top of whatever standards they create here.

Let's, let's finish on one last article here, Jeff, and that is,

this is cool. We talked about hardware in the context of

Oculus. Here's another piece of hardware. And this is solena

Labs building a web three mobile phone. So the backers of the

Solana blockchain said the devices will cost around $1,000

be available for delivery in early 2023.

The phone is going to be called saga, it's an Android handset.

It's a modified ozone handset. I don't know that the the probably

no Diem, I guess, with specialty crypto wallet functions. And the

Selenium mobile stack Software Development Kit for web three

programs. Cost $1,000, like I said, be available early 2023.

It's their biggest bet yet on mobile focus growth. It's going

to feature a web three decentralized App Store,

integrated Solana pay for on chain payments, a mobile wallet

adapter, like all about mobile, and crypto mobile and mobile web

three games, I guess is the vision here, all in sort of one

handset you could buy now. I'm not sure if this is more for

developers or more for end users. But what do you think

Jeff, of the Solana mobile phone here saga? The first thing I

literally thought was this, this is this is Google stadia for

phones. And it's like it's a problem solution. It's a tech

solution in search of a problem. Like, maybe it's a little

facetious, because I do think the mobile, the current mobile

ecosystem is really not optimized for like crypto

gaming, stuff like that, just because the walled gardens that

Apple will have kind of like what we just talked about, you

can't do pain, you can't really do crypto payments on those app

stores.

But I would have rather someone come up with a software solution

within that ecosystem that made it less clunky than the current

version, but didn't include having to buy a whole new phone,

I just do not fundamentally believe there's enough people

out there that you're gonna get enough adoption, that this is

gonna get critical mass, like, I just don't believe they're gonna

create a good enough product from a hardware device

standpoint. And then also an application standpoint, you will

have on sure if a bunch of crypto developers go to apps for

this, but I just, I find it hard to believe that you're going to,

you're going to see a massive adoption from a developer

perspective of this phone, because I just don't think

you'll see enough people buying. Wow. So I'm not super bullish on

it. But I do think it's interesting when the to actually

follow up is not something that I had expected opposite from

from

what do you think?

I'm gonna call it something but I think crypto companies, for

better or for worse, because you could say, and it's a good

thing, it's, it can also be a bad thing. In this case, I think

it's a bad thing. Where, because everything has been rah rah

crypto for the last two years or three years like and, you know,

everything's up into the right and, and everyone's gotten

massively wealthy, and there's billions being thrown at this

like that, you tend to develop a bit of a god complex, right? And

you start to just assume you can do everything. Right. And we've

talked about this before, like, every every blockchain based

game pitch deck that I see is like, this is our token. And by

the way, we're gonna make a great game. And then this is

like, like, okay, but you just assumed like the really hardest

part and like, assuming you can make a phone, which is a piece

of hardware, which is really hard. And this is not going to

be a great phone, right? It's some, probably some Chinese ODM,

I don't know this company that is just going to be a plastic

and gore glass slab. That's no different than any other phone.

And to your point, you don't if you don't reach critical mass,

what is the point of this whole exercise other than wasting

zillions of dollars developing your own phone? When you're

right. And I'm totally in agreement with you here that all

that development effort should have been on? How do we crack

the existing platforms and leverage the existing

distribution and make, you know, grandma's iPhone, good enough to

use to do all the things that the Solana phone can do?

That's the bigger price. And so I don't know why you go after

the small price that's exceedingly difficult, unless

you make the assumption that it's not that hard. Right. And

that's a row

wrong assumption. It's an assumption that comes from a god

complex. I think it's just an also a misunderstanding of

ecosystem. Like, I don't think there's that many consumers that

are yearning so much to use crypto technology that they're

going to buy a whole phone to be able to do it. The benefit of

crypto

very small group, but the benefit of crypto technology is

one, it's all happening in the background. So if there ever got

to a point where the use case was so great, that there was

enough consumers that really yearn for this, that they were

willing to go switch their smartphone, which is an absolute

pain in the neck, that nobody wants to do you know, what Apple

and Google are gonna do, they're gonna say, Oh, guess what, with

Apple Pay, you can now use crypto, and then your, your

phone is dead. Second, they decide to do that. So as soon as

you find the killer app, they're just gonna come and steal

everything like, Oh, we're losing a little bit of market

share, guess what we now enabled crypto payments, boom, ever.

You're got your install base is that, like,

it's so insightful? And I think so funny. You say that, because

I read an article just the other day that every time Apple does

like their, their core, like their twice a year, you know,

like where they show off the new hardware. Like at their

worldwide developer conference, they show off new features in

their operating systems, that I read this article that said,

every worldwide developer conference, when they announce a

feature 1000 startups go out of business.

And you're right.

They do figure out some killer app for this that everyone

wants, while you already have how many billion iPhones like

out in the world, you just added as a feature in the next version

of iOS. And I mean, I don't know. Maybe that's the point

though. Maybe they want to spur, Google and Apple to do

something. Maybe that's an expensive.

Like, that's an expensive way of doing it. So

like that was this was a fun episode.

That is the end though. I will say. Don't forget, guys. This

podcast drops every single week. So share it with a friend share

it with a colleague, tell everyone about it. Go check out

our brother slash sister podcast if you want to call it met a

woman and also business of esports if you're not subscribed

to those Jeff's on business of esports also. And so if you love

the juice, you can't get enough of the juice at Jeff Cohen 23 Go

subscribe to business of esports as well if you found this here.

But we really appreciate you guys tuning in every week. We'll

leave that Review share with a friend. Don't forget the future

is fun. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for joining us here

on meta business. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast

everywhere you get your podcasts, leave a five star

review and tell your friends, family and colleagues all about

us. Also, make sure to follow metta TV on all socials to get

more of the best Metaverse content anywhere. Tune in every

week for another episode of meta business