Shownotes
Show Notes - The Web3 Gamer - Episode 6: Brothers in Blockchain: Exploring Bitcoin, Web3 Gaming and Beyond
In this episode of The Web3 Gamer, we welcome Nathan Simone, my brother and someone who has worked in and has a great knowledge of the crypto space.
Join us as we explore a variety of topics around Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies, gaming, and Web3 gaming.
Listen in to this insightful conversation and discover the exciting possibilities of Web3 Gaming with Nathan Simone.
Links to Nathan Simone's Socials:
Stay tuned for more episodes exploring the latest in Web3 Gaming. Game on! 🎮
In this episode, Matthew engages in a thought-provoking conversation with his brother, Nathan, who is known for his creativity and diligence as a writer and explorer. Nathan has not only imparted invaluable lessons to Matthew but also played a crucial role in the inception of their podcast.
They dive into the complex world of cryptocurrency and Web3, sharing their individual experiences with Bitcoin, exposing scams in the crypto realm, and discussing the emergence of meme tokens, including Dogecoin's origins as a joke coin. The conversation extends to intriguing subjects such as Bitcoin ordinals, the intersection of NFTs and gaming, and the potential benefits of solar energy in the crypto mining process.
Both Matthew and Nathan underline the importance of thorough research, secure self-custody of assets, and remaining updated in the fast-evolving crypto space. Grateful for the enriching discussion, Nathan is open to joining future episodes of the podcast.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
Hello. Hello, friends and gamers. In this episode, I talked with my brother Nathan. What a lot of people don't know is his real name is Nathaniel, but he goes by Nathan because I think it's more unique and, you know, I, I don't know the full story on that one, but that's what he goes by. Nathan is a writer, Explorer and self described bit Coiner.
The only thing he believes in more than freedom is creativity. And I do want to say that my brother is one of the most creative, hardworking people I've ever met. he seriously in most situations where people would give up or just go, gosh, I must be doing something wrong or I can't understand things. He truly keeps moving forward and keeps doing his best and just, he's always got something up his sleeve.
He'll even admit in situations where he's like, wow, I should be really discouraged or depressed about this, but I still find things to look forward to be happy about. And so I always cater that, that he has a very strong mind and he's also been through a lot in that sense that I think he's learned to flex and grow and work his mind to be strong and allow him to bounce back from a lot of things just like any human being.
He has his down days obviously, but he's really good about keeping himself going forward and always trying to improve. And he's taught me a lot of really valuable lessons in that sense. I want to be completely honest and I probably never would have started the Web three Gamer if he hadn't started talking to me about cryptocurrencies. Way back in the day at this point, we'll say 2017 is when I started learning about it, but really 2019 is 2020 is when he started really driving it home
for me. But I mean, I remember him talking about so many different cryptocurrencies for so long and being like, huh, I don't know, it's interesting. I'm trying to learn more about it, but it's just kind of hard back then. And, when he started working in it, I was like, wow, this is a place where you can really have a career. And I was like, maybe I should try doing it too because I had really enjoyed it.
Funny enough. I ended up working for someone else and then pivoted into this podcast. But I will also admit as somebody who's known about podcasts for literally over a decade, I didn't start listening to or getting engaged with podcasts until he started showing me podcasts. So you could argue. I am my brother's apprentice and I don't say that in a bad way. I, I'm happy to be his apprentice, but he's taught me a lot and I always value the conversations.
We have. Funny enough, we have conversations like this all the time and it was his idea to go, let's record one for the podcast. So I was more than happy and I'll definitely have him on again in the future because we already have these conversations. So to be able to record it and turn it into content is just great. And I hope that anybody listening benefits and enjoys this conversation because I enjoyed it. I am Matthew and this is the Web three gamer
…
tired of your pork chops not having enough traceability. Wish you could prove their juiciness on the Blockchain introducing block chops, the world's first and perhaps only pork chops on the Blockchain. Each comes with their own NFT. That's non fungible tenderloin. So you won't just enjoy lip smacking pork chop. You'll own a unique digital collectible associated with it. Talk about a mouthwatering investment.
Each delicious bite can be traced back to its farm to Fork Journey. Every detail is recorded in the immutable ledger of the Blockchain. So try block chops today. Hi, I'm Matthew and this is the Web three gamer. I am here with Nathan Simone an all around. Cool dude if you wonder why we have the same last name. Well, it's just total happen. Stance.
Yeah. Matthew, there's a lot of people with the last name Simone that are Italian that are into crypto that, you know, I think Red Dead Redemption two is the greatest game of all time. It's not a coincidence. We're not related at all. It's just, you know, the way it is, dude.
Yeah.
And I mean, why to you is Red Dead Redemption two, the greatest video game of all time, you know, Matthew, we could talk about that all day and I'm sure that we'll definitely get into it.
But I just want to tell people in the audience here that in order to get on this podcast, the line was like seven people long. I had put in half a Bitcoin and I had to schedule this at a very inopportune time to me. So I just want to thank this Schlub for letting me on his podcast. He's doing lots of interesting things. I am the one who taught him about crypto and, but he's the one who taught me about gaming and I feel like we're both teaching each other about life in different ways.
So I'm definitely excited to have this conversation and I feel like it's gonna be fruitful to people that are out there listening the way that I approach podcast, Matthew. And I don't know if you feel the same way, the way that I always approach podcasts is I never ever, ever want to record a podcast that I wouldn't want to listen to. So I think it's gonna be fun.
I think it's gonna be interesting and I'm interested to see here what you want to talk about. I know, I know you mentioned gaming, but I feel like we should start off with Web three stuff and crypto stuff. So, you know, I, I'd like to know this. How, like, why are you fascinated by Web Three? And I'd love to know what you think of as your crypto origin story.
Well, crypto origin story, I can literally remember it like it was yesterday. I was on my third attempt in college having failed out three different times sitting in the car going back from the community college in traffic and hearing on the radio, they're like, Bitcoin has surged past the $17,000 mark. And I was like, oh that stuff when I was in high school and people just used it to buy drugs on the Silk Road.
And I was like, I can't believe that stuff is still around one and two. I can't believe it's taking off is crazy. And then I remember having a friend sending me a picture of the metallic Bitcoin token going Yeah, I just bought a whole Bitcoin having no idea of the concept of being like, that's not how it works, dude. But being like, hey, if you, if it's worth it to you and it was somebody who was very savvy with investing.
So I was like, hey, I could see it doing really well for you. I didn't really pay any much attention to it until I guess I wanna say, you know, probably gosh, since you started in 2016, you were just talking about it all the time. I feel like I got a lot of happen stance through the grapevine from you, but I didn't really delve into it till 2019 where you were just like, oh let me just like, show you stuff and you would just be like, hey, set up this wall, let me send you like five or $10 of crypto
and be like, this is how it works. This is how it goes. And then just really that and a lot of self education, but a lot of you just educating me and showing me things and telling me things that eventually I got to the point where I was like, yeah, I don't think this is going away. It's clearly has a wild ride. It has a lot of people behind it. And then obviously, you know, there was a period there, we were both very into libertarianism. So like it just kind of fell in line with crypto was in,
this was very much in that on the ven diagram in that line of things. So it kind of just made sense as well. But I think it really too, like, once COVID hit and like, the idea of just not having control over my bank account or funding, even though I knew that for the longest time really hit home, that really made me want to delve more into it as a reserve asset, as a reserve of my financial wealth preservation and a way to outpace inflation and just grow.
You know, that's really interesting because I don't think I ever heard that story of where you were coming home from Georgia Perimeter Community College and hearing Bitcoin on the radio. I, I sort of wanna just, I wanna go back to that and, and, and touch on it real quick because I think that there's a lot of people out there who maybe they haven't taken the standard traditional education path.
And what's interesting is people might not know this about you. You actually have a master's degree and you're definitely one of the smartest dudes. I know in a lot of ways, but if you had to have one, you know, check mark that wasn't checked off the boxes that you definitely didn't go to four years to college and then the two years to graduate school, you did like a zigzag line.
But what I think is fascinating is that your zigzag line probably will end up being more profitable long term than most people's straight lines or most people's conventional maths because you learned a lot of lessons, the hard way and you learned by doing, which is a, a major reinforcement for learning and you know, not to get too deep, but like you learned a lot of lessons the hard way. And I, I feel like this hearing about Bitcoin on the radio when it was $17,000 which I think you
said it was 2018. I, I'm trying to think about when that would have been in Bitcoin's Price history because I've been paying attention to it since 2016. Do you remember what it was like on N pr? Like, can, can we just go back to that moment real quick where? Because it seems like things sort of clicked there.
Sure. So it was definitely 2017. It was on N pr of all places and it was obviously before the, I guess I don't wanna say post COVID bull run, but there was that COVID bow run. It was the bull run before that and it was just on a tear. And basically, I think the only reason they were reporting it on the news is because it had kept going up and everybody was like, oh this crazy Bitcoin thing that isn't backed by anything.
It doesn't mean anything and it just kept popping up everywhere. Like I think I was just listening to this and like every day they were just talking about it going higher and higher. And I was like, man, this is, this is crazy. I literally remember in 2013 working at Whole Foods and some dude had talked about how he's like, when it was, gosh, I mean, 2013, it couldn't have been more than $1000 a coin if that, it had to be very low at that point.
Some dude, all I remember is he's like, my friend just sold 30 Bitcoin and he bought himself a brand new car and I thought that was crazy because I was like, dude, that's that stuff that like again before I really understood everything. I was like, oh dude, that stuff that's like that money like made out of nothing printed out of thin air. Like it's not backed by anything.
Like people just perceive it as value, let alone what you learn about the real like, you know, capitalist economics and figure out that there's a lot of similarities there. It just blew my mind that I thought that was kind of the be all end all. I was like, 0 2013, it'll never come back. It'll be crazy. You know, like a lot of people say in 2017 came back even harder even more.
I was like, man, I bet that dude's mad that he sold his Bitcoin and bought a car. He probably could have bought like six or seven cars now. But how could you know, he probably was like, oh, it's gonna crash as the highest it's ever gonna go. Basically. What I was getting to is 2013 I thought about, I was like, wow, I could have bought at least five Bitcoin with my paltry grocery store wages and I never did because I didn't think about it or care about it.
Understand anything about it. Then 2017 still could have bought a lot more than I bought, after that. But again, I didn't understand it. I didn't know about it. So I was just like, oh, this interesting thing and I don't, I think it just clicked there that I was like, oh, it's like any other financial asset. It has its cycles and clearly there's a perception of value and people believe in it for the long term that like crypto is not going away.
Well, I wouldn't feel too bad about it because, you know, obviously, like I said, I've been paying attention to this since 2016 and you know this story, but I'll tell it for your audience. I definitely remember when you could buy Crypto on paypal, but not from paypal, right? You were just buying it from random people on paypal in particular.
Shout out to my guy Greg over at we sell crypto. Greg was a stand-up dude and he would sell crypto on paypal and obviously he must have been mining it. I don't know where he would have gotten it other than you could talk to him over, read it, you could talk to him over. you know, the earlier versions of Twitter. And I just remember seeing that the highest price asset that he sold was Bitcoin and Bitcoin was bouncing around between 2 75 and $300.
Which, you know, now as we're recording this, it's essentially at $30,000. It's, it's slightly below that, but it's, it's in that range, it's almost becoming an institutional asset because Black Rock and I mean, Vanguard literally now owns Bitcoin mining stocks. So it's like if it's a Ponzi Vanguard is gonna have a really bad day. But I remember thinking when I looked at the $300 price here, here's my exact thought it was.
Why would I pay $300 for like some sort of computer code? Like I just don't get this. Like, what am I getting? Which as I say it out loud now is interesting because you literally can go on, fiver all sorts of labor marketplaces, digital labor marketplaces. And if you don't want to write a write a program yourself, you could pay somebody $300 for a code, like computer code is valuable, but I just didn't understand what Bitcoin actually was and $300 at the time was quite a lot of money to
me. Of course. Now, I wish I'd just, you know, I wish I had just put a bunch of it on a credit card and held it. I was also an early coin based customer pre the 2017 bull run. And I clearly remember if, if you go onto my Coinbase account, now there's still transactions where it says that I bought crypto with a credit card, which is now illegal. You're just simply not allowed to do that.
because it's the same reason you're not allowed to buy stocks on a credit card. So, like, you know, if I had a time machine, I'd tell myself, hey, you know that credit that you're building, that you're gonna do a really good job with because you're a good financial steward and you're not going crazy, buying a bunch of whole stuff you don't need and you have that, you're fortunate enough to live at home, go and buy $5000 worth of Bitcoin.
It's ok. Whatever interest you pay on it because maybe it'll motivate you to get a job or do something else. But that will be worth so much that whatever interest you pay on the credit card is gonna be outpaced by Bitcoin's growth and you just don't know. So instead of buying Bitcoin, I bought a decent amount of Bitcoin. I think I bought like 20 Bitcoin.
I bought Dogecoin when it was beneath a penny when it was just a whole bunch of zeros. And then I actually bought one of the first proof of stake currencies, which was called red coin, which definitely could have been like the social media tipping coin of Reddit. And with those three kryptos, I was able to learn all about crypto for basically less than $100.
And, to say that they were, the early days is sort of an understatement. You might remember me making paper wallets on an old computer that I had where, like, you had to keep it disconnected from the internet and you had to hook it up to a printer and you had to print them out and like, it was all very confusing to me. But I'm really glad that I did it because I also made a lot of mistakes early.
So I clearly remember losing $300 worth of light coin by sending it to the wrong address because I didn't check the last four like a basic thing now that even most apps will do for you, they'll check whether the address is correct address and good that I learned it then instead of now. But it's just one of those things where like, you don't know until, you know, people still don't understand crypto now and being able to be like,
wait, what do you mean? I can't get it back and then understanding how cryptographic protocols work and how Cryptocurrency works. Just totally fascinating so completely.
I literally was just reading a Reddit post earlier today where some dude was like, and once again, II, I think we both agree on this that I'm like cold storage reigns supreme always. And it blows my mind out. People will even just have like $1000 in a mobile wallet. And I'm like, that's $1000 too much. I just wouldn't do it. But I was reading a post about a dude who's like, well, I had $7000 of, in a mobile wallet and I guess he was doing, he was on a gambling website and he claims he won 100
and $65,000 in E and he's like, clearly somebody had my seed phrase because as soon as I deposited it immediately got swept and he had the, the transaction ID. And he's like, I'm trying to figure out if somebody installed sweeper or sweep wear, you know, where basically sweep wear is any time any amount gets deposited automatically clears it out.
But he's like, I don't think that's the case because there's still $2 in there. And it's just, he basically, II I felt bad. He's like I have a ledger, I didn't put it on there. I should have put it on there. He basically was like, learn from my mistake. He's like, this was a dumb reason. I knew all the things they shouldn't have happened to me. And I will admit I've had stupid things as we've discussed.
So I think this is a good segue into why you shouldn't invest in projects or things you don't fully understand as somebody who has done that for multiple projects. And gotten burned. Hardcore of me. Just me...
