Anatomy of a HODLR - Using Dune to Decide | Interview: Block199.io

Block199.io Interview

For our very first guest podcast, Rantum spoke with ElBarto_crypto  a Dune wizard and crypto data scientist, working on research at Block119.io. Recently, he’s researched and published on topics like NFT Hodler segmentation, airdrops, and NFT wash trading. 

• How to check if a collection is made of hodlers or flippers
• Check wash trading volume for collections & platforms
• What tools el_barto uses to use to analyze collections
• What topics he plans to research next

 

Rough Transcript

 

[00:00:00] Rantum: All right. Uh, here we are. I, this is ran. Andrew, here I am with our very first guest. We've talked about this on the, if you've listened for a little while, we've talked about this on the intro for a long time, that we would have guests, we've, uh, yet to actually do that and. Well, that's up until today. Uh, we've had, uh, we have a data sign, another data scientist joining us today.

[00:01:06] He actually reached out his Alberto Crypto as he goes by on Twitter. On Twitter. He reached out, uh, and asked to, to be a guest on the podcast. And, you know, I, I felt like we really needed to, to actually do it. So here we are. Welcome to the show, El Baro Crypto .

[00:01:24] Elbarto Crypto: Gne. Well, thanks for having me. I've realized in life if you just asked people enough, they either get sick of you or they let you do something.

[00:01:30] So in this case, I'm glad to be the latter.

[00:01:33] Rantum: Yeah, yeah. Really excited to actually do this. You know, it's a good needy, you know, little instigator to, to make it happen. . Perfect. I love it. So tell me a little bit about yourself. How'd you get where you are? How'd you get into crypto?

[00:01:48] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah, so I am actually a data scientist by trade.

[00:01:51] I worked in marketing analytics for probably a little longer than a decade, doing everything from segmentation, machine learning just writing basic SQL queries. Got to spend a lot of time doing customer analytics for very large brands, uh, in the marketing space and. Sort of caught the Bitcoin bug in like end of 2014 ish and you couldn't do really anything at that point.

[00:02:17] You could just send Bitcoin to each other and that was, that was fun. . And then yeah, Ethereum ICO came. Um, once again, people still just, you know, sending Ether around, maybe trading on XX Ether Delta, these crazy, um, underground exchanges. Uh, but once for, for a while, you know, really the only thing you could do is, is not get caught up in a scam or an ICO scam.

[00:02:39] And then, uh, right around 2019, I believe it was, um, dune Analytics launched and that was like sort of. . That was sort of like the great equalizer for data scientists because now all of a sudden you have this platform that you could tap into to query the blockchain, you know, for free, honestly. And that was like the, the most beautiful thing.

[00:02:58] You could just easily share careers with people, share dashboards with people. Then this Analytics community, sort of, joined around that. And then other products like SEN launched, um, flip side crypto, a lot of these, you know, data open blockchain on, on BigQuery. And so now all of a sudden you, you know, you didn't have to worry about data engineering running your own validator, running your own node.

[00:03:18] You could just. Query data and you build, you know, beautiful data sets. And, uh, I think a lot of things like in the marketing analytics background, definitely applied to crypto just in terms of, you know, user retention who's actually using products, machine learning, things like that. So yeah, absolutely.

[00:03:34] It's been a very natural transition to, uh, to analyzing data. And now, uh, now. It's gotten crazy. analyze a lot of data on Yeah. Yeah. , it's, it's a lot of fun though. Meet a lot of the people like yourself. So, yeah,

[00:03:46] Rantum: similar background. I was, I did a lot in, in e-commerce, analytics, marketing, uh, for this and, you know, fem way into crypto.

[00:03:53] And, and it's, it's, it's really exciting having access to all of the, the data as opposed to, you know, just what the, uh, the one company that you're working with, uh, provides. Right.

[00:04:03] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah. I mean, that's such a good. Like I, I think people don't realize like how special this data set is if you go work for you know, like a big enterprise company, even as a data scientist, like, well one, like you probably don't get access to data right away.

[00:04:17] You probably have to get approved. You have to, you know, build the trust of people to start analyzing data. Um, here from day one, you know, it's, it's open right here. You can even, I think Google BigQuery even gives you $300 free. Uh, so you can just tap in immediately and. Securing data. It's really, uh, it's really amazing.

[00:04:35] Rantum: Yeah. Yeah. How did you. , what was, what did you get started with when you started on Dune? I mean, you saw that it was available, there's free data. What, what were the first projects that you got interested

[00:04:46] Elbarto Crypto: in? Yeah, so the first thing was just really looking at like what, who's using, uh, who's using the platform?

[00:04:52] And as many, many people know, my dog who's in the background, he's, uh, he's, he's running from farm to farm is what he's doing. Uh, many people, uh, I think at first it was just creating, you know, The raw blockchain data itself to really like, understand what's going on. I think, I think one of the biggest problems people face is there is this open data set, but immediately they, um, get inundated with these, uh, very specific contract calls and they have to, um, decode data and all of a sudden you're dealing with OS and hashes.

[00:05:25] And I think at first people get really like overwhelmed. And I remember looking. , um, dune for the first time and just seeing all these contract abstractions, like, I think it, it must have started with Ave back then, but just thinking like, what is going on here? Like how this is, this seems impossible. So I think it definitely takes a lot of patience, but at first it was just, you know, how many people are using the Ethereum blockchain?

[00:05:47] You know how many people a day are using it? How many people used it last month and now are using it this month again? So it was really, for me, it was really just basic before, um, really diving into like more more of the abstractions around like ave and then compound and really seeing that lending side and then really just trying to visualize like who's making big D trades, you know, just very basic, like, hey, just let's just sort dex trades by u SD volume and like, let's just see who's buying things.

[00:06:14] So I think like, yeah, at first it was like super basic because honestly it, it's very overwhelming when you first look at it. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:20] Rantum: I mean, having all of the data available is, is great. And it's also overwhelming, right? Having all the choices. Exactly.

[00:06:29] Elbarto Crypto: Everything's thrown at you at once. It's uh, yeah, it's a lot of our.

[00:06:34] Rantum: How did you, you know, or 2019 it was, you know, a lot of D trades, you know, then we got into, you know, the kind of defi after that and then, you know, saw, you know, NFTs come, you know, big in, you know, in 2021. I, you know, it's is when it was, you know, really took off. How did you, uh, What, what did, how did you start working with the N F T data?

[00:06:56] Um, and how'd you find that different than working with some of the, uh, the early token data? Yeah,

[00:07:01] Elbarto Crypto: I like, the reason I like N F T data a lot is because, um, the same token, i e d and the same, um, the transfers across trade. So I think one of the biggest problems you have with Dex trades and analyzing like defi data, , um, people can immediately go anonymous.

[00:07:19] Like, if I make huge Dex trade I can then just go back into Binance or just send my phones back on a Coinbase or and then it just becomes like an, an empty hole. Like, well, what happens with that person? What happens with that token? But for n n T data, since it's all on chain and you can't really, and each token is, is essentially a, a unique token, it really lends to some interesting analytics around.

[00:07:42] how long people hold NFTs. So I think that's what one of the things that drew me to it was, it's understanding the nuances are obviously like very complicated, like with lost shells, which we'll probably talk about later. But from the very beginning, it made sense to me that like ID one is always ID one and it always corresponds to the ID one.

[00:08:03] So it, it really lends to some beautiful, like long-term a. , um, with NFT

[00:08:08] Rantum: drill. Yeah. That, that non, that non fungible aspect really takes exactly

[00:08:12] Elbarto Crypto: way, right, . Yeah, exactly. I think people take, I, I think, I think people don't realize like how unique that is. Uh, and definitely allows for, for interesting transac for interesting analysis.

[00:08:22] Rantum: Yeah. I mean, I, I've definitely found that interesting. When you look at NFT collections, I mean, you can't look at trades as, you can't look at every trade as the same. I mean, there are. oftentimes reasons that things are trading at, at much, maybe something significantly higher than the floor. You know, sometimes there aren't, and you know, we know there's a lot of wash trading out there.

[00:08:42] Um, have you found that, have you found that aspect difficult to decipher, you know, what is real versus, uh, sort of the wash trade or how much do you

[00:08:52] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah. Uh, shout out to Hilda today for, for introducing a new, uh, uh, wash trading flag. So at first, like I remember this is like really dating myself. So like, well let's, you know, starting with like the looks rare, um, that was like when, when people first like, oh man, yeah, that, um, wash trade concept of like, hey, volume is exploding, but in reality like people are just nibis and terraforms.

[00:09:19] Yeah, exactly. So I think it's like, yeah, I think it. It's so interesting because you, you, you can do very basic, you can do very good analytics, just the basic, you know, SQL group buy statements, and this is, this is Data Pod Science podcast. We'll just go right into and nerding it out. But you can do very like, easy analytics with, you know, group buy day, you know, what's the volume of n ft sales?

[00:09:41] And I think a lot of a lot of mainstream publications like to just look at like, okay, um, volume is down 80. . But in reality, like it's obviously much more different than that. So, we now know that, uh, a lot of volume all looks rare was really just people farming will look for a token just mindlessly trading tokens.

[00:09:57] And so from there it, you know, it'll, it, it forced people to sort of think a little deeper in terms of, you know, a trade is not just a trade and you know, what is an actual wash sale trade or and now I think. . It's interesting because blur almost, it, it forces you to rethink about analytics once again, because we know like what a, a wash trade is now.

[00:10:18] But now there's like these very interesting, um, analytics going on about people, you know. Taking this one step further and doing all sorts of crazy placing orders like slightly above the floor price when they not be a wash sale or maybe swapping out NFTs. So like let's say if you own a board ape and you just want to farm, you don't really care what ape you own and you just kind of wanna farm the the blur sale, you can sort of just.

[00:10:42] Sell eight, buy another one, sell that one, buy another one. You're not really changing anything. Even taking slate laws

[00:10:48] Rantum: to Exactly, yeah. Of the blurred to eventual, blurred

[00:10:51] Elbarto Crypto: token . Exactly. In the hopes of getting a $50,000 airdrop. Uh, so it's interesting now, like, as these N F T models evolve for, for revenue for these exchanges, like then doing the due diligence of analytics to, to figuring out, you know, what's.

[00:11:09] Rantum: Yeah, it, it's, you know, we see these incentives and, I mean, we've seen all these, uh, sort of vampire attacks on open sea and different ways to try to maybe disincentivize people from gaming, the systems, and it seems like. Collectors or, you know, maybe not, and maybe those, I shouldn't really call those people the collectors.

[00:11:28] These are the, the people out there. There's somebody that's going to figure out how to, to make the most of the system. And, you know, it's, it's a tough one when you to, to, to look ahead and realize what people are going to

[00:11:38] Elbarto Crypto: do, . Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's, it, it's, I don't wanna say it's fa as an analytics person, but like it definitely makes you think, and it definitely challenges you to say, , how can I use data to, to understand what, what's really going

[00:11:53] Rantum: on?

[00:11:55] Yeah. I mean, it, it is, I mean, all of these different crypto charts, there's always, you know, looks all steady until there's a serious inflection point and something drastic changes. And, and you see this all the time. I mean, you know, and in just the volume that you see among opens sea and blur and, and looks rare and, you know, you, you sort of need to know the story behind why these, these things are changing so drastically.

[00:12:17] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah, exactly. And I think that makes you a better analytics person too. Like I, you know, if, if you're looking at break into this sector, and you know, like on job interviews and things like that. Like definitely bringing up points of like, well, why do you think um, hey, this data looks like the way it is. Is it sustainable?

[00:12:33] Exactly to your point. Like, is it sustainable? Like, what's really going on here? I think, do you really have a ability to differentiate, like in this space, if you can bring these, you know, differentiated analytics. So can you tell me

[00:12:46] Rantum: a little bit about block 1 99 and then the N F T Hudler segmentation that you've been working?

[00:12:53] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah. So, um, we are essentially just a research firm. Uh, we do research for, you know, individuals for protocols, uh, all across the stack. And so a while back someone was essentially wanted to understand, you know, what, you know, how people, how different N F T projects are and what their users look like.

[00:13:15] So for example, like if you have an N F T project where. , most of the holders are people that you know, are these larger whales? Maybe just like trading in and out of things, you know, what does the long-term engagement really look like versus an N F T project where a lot of people. we're in it from the beginning.

[00:13:37] And, um, they're true loyalists like of a project. And so what they were trying to understand was, you know, should I, you know, invest in this N F T project because are are the people that are really long term holders. So the way to do that, and, and it's really a, a beauty of the blockchain is you, you can, uh, you can essentially just take all the holders of a certain n ft collection and then you.

[00:14:02] uh, count how many NFTs they own. Some the amount of volume that's been spent look at, you know, are they how much wash sales have they done? How many floor sweeps have they done? So you essentially have this data frame of, you know, the 10, you know, the 5,000 holders and, you know, what's all their N F T activity.

[00:14:19] From there, you can just like run a kme segmentation to find these different, um, groups of, of people and then figure out like, okay, well what is their activity in the entire N F T space? So if you see that, you know, 90% of the holders, you know, on average holding N F T collection for 20 days, or are the, you know, top 10% of traders on X two, Y two, you may think twice about buying that FT collection because, you know, people are just flipping it for the sake

[00:14:47] Rantum: of Flipp.

[00:14:48] Right. Right. And so when you're looking at these, the activity, you're looking at activity from all

[00:14:55] Elbarto Crypto: NFTs,

[00:14:56] Rantum: that, that may have ha uh, been passed through this wallet. You're not looking at necessarily that specific collection. Right,

[00:15:01] Elbarto Crypto: exactly. Yeah. And I think like, you, you know, you can, you can almost sort of like then do this matrix if you will.

[00:15:08] Like, you could segment, um, just like current activity and then sort of like create this matrix of like Yeah. All other n ft activity to get really, like, dive into. How the users play out. But ideally, like what you're looking for and in the case of this person that they were looking for was, they wanted to see that people who are like true contributors to the N F T community or they had like strong holdings and like what would held on, would hold on a lot.

[00:15:32] think like some good examples of that are like, if you look at pudgy penguins, um, shout out to the, to the poo group. Um, a lot of them have, if you, you just look at simple like distributions of how long they've been the project for. Like a lot of them, um, have held since the beginning almost. And so you kind of look at that community and say like, okay, is that's something that I wanna do for the long term.

[00:15:54] and the price. And, you know, the price has done pretty well. They had on a recent mini surge this, um, past couple of weeks. But it makes sense because, you know, just the supply of, of poos to hit the market is if no one's selling, it's always going down the, the number, the amount of supply that's hitting the market.

[00:16:11] So, um, it makes sense that, you know, eventually, uh, Prices price go up. So Right. Versus, uh, versus like, you see

[00:16:20] Rantum: the sustained interest, I guess is, is something that it's a little hard to measure from inactivity, but if they're not, if they're not dumping, there is something there. Right. . Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:30] Elbarto Crypto: And I think that's the, that's like the holy grail of NFT engagement is how do you measure engagement of, of the nons sellers.

[00:16:37] Because right now I, you know, Like volume does not equal engagement. If someone is selling their N F T, they're the least engaged with the brand.

[00:16:45] Rantum: Right, right. Volume is is a very poor measure of, of the quality of a

[00:16:50] Elbarto Crypto: project. Exactly. I, the problem is like unfortunately, like we don't have another way to, to do this.

[00:16:55] And I think like the ways so far, it's interesting looking at the, the board ape ecosystem and, and, and maybe you can see. , you know, how many people are participating in governance or how many, you know, a polls also hold ape coin. But, you know, getting outside of the blockchain, you know, engagement becomes a much more interesting thing.

[00:17:18] I think the evolution of NFTs should be some sort of like, loyalty, you know, coming back to the marketing world, you know, some sort of like marketing, uh, you know, CRM engagement platform where you can engage like outside of the blockchain. . Uh, so it's, it's, it's definitely in its ancy. And I think I'll, I think, I think NFT brands that are, are data first and are looking to expand their analytics capability are definitely gonna do better.

[00:17:43] Rantum: Yeah. It feels like there's just a lot not being used. I mean, you can obviously find out so much about your, your holders and what their interests are just by looking at the wallet, and I don't think that's being, being used by many, uh, project creators or uh, leaders at this point.

[00:17:59] Elbarto Crypto: Oh yeah, absolutely agree.

[00:18:01] Rantum: Um, so you've developed something called an nf or you're working on something called an N F D D Gen Score. Can you just tell me a little bit about that?

[00:18:08] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah, so I'm looking for someone to take this over actually. So DM me because I'm going out on crypto paternity leave soon. But essentially, uh, there's something called the defi, um, D Degen score, or it's just, I think it's just called DEGEN score.

[00:18:23] um, your defi activity, right? And I, I want to build, I'm in the process of building, haven't built yet. Sort of like this N F T engagement or D gen score of, okay, how many you know, how many projects do you hold? How many mints have you done? How many, how many trades have you placed? Um, the idea here is more along the lines of it's almost like a segmentation, but.

[00:18:46] if you're an N F T project, that's going to whitelist some you know, whitelist or project for certain holders or addresses. It would be nice if you had an idea of, of, you know, who would you want to whitelist this for? And like, do you wanna exclude certain groups? Do you wanna include only people with above a certain score or, you know, have had certain engagement?

[00:19:06] So I think it's like really meant for, you know, hopefully for projects to better understand. , Hey, let's, you know, make this let's make this white list. Like for people that really care about NFTs or like people that aren't just gonna like immediately dump, um, these NFTs. So there's a lot of ways you can do this.

[00:19:24] I, I would want to almost optimize this for like, engagement with NFTs instead of just like farming to dump. But I think that's where the hard part comes in.

[00:19:36] Rantum: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we're seeing, I mean, we're so sort of a misalignment, so many places of, you know, where are the, you know, what is activity and, you know, what, where is the, you know, where are the royalties coming from?

[00:19:46] When you're thinking about all these, uh, these different issues, it seems like we come back to the same thing. The people that are are selling are the ones that are co, I mean, you know, obviously a, a cell requires a buy, but that's when the, the income comes into a project. When. Ideally you just want nobody to, to really wanna sell.

[00:20:05] Right? And

[00:20:05] Elbarto Crypto: yes. Yes,

[00:20:07] Rantum: exactly. How do you, I don't know. I'm not, you know, I see that one, I know that one of the projects that you wanna work on is, uh, trying to calculate the royalty income and, you know, do you see that as being a sustainable model going forward?

[00:20:21] Elbarto Crypto: I, you know, I'm very mixed on this because I used to think, like, I used to want projects.

[00:20:26] I used to really like the royalty initiative because I think it is fair in some sense. . I think if we were to eliminate royalties like tomorrow, I think they would force N F T brands to start thinking of like alternative business models because yeah, like as we said over and over again, like the royalty optimizes towards people selling.

[00:20:47] In reality, it should be the complete flip of that. Like the most engaged people, like across every brand, the most engaged people with the brand are the ones like creating the revenue for you. I, while I, I don't know exactly where I fall in the royalty space right now. I, I, you know, it's not, luckily it's not my job to do that.

[00:21:07] Yeah, right. . But I think that like, it would force n f T brands to think of new revenue streams that I only think will help them. Because right now royalties are obviously limited to people that are buying and selling NFTs. And the goal is to. a brand. Just a brand in general, right? Like when you think about Ferrari, like everyone knows Ferrari.

[00:21:30] Their, their brand recognition is beyond anything. They, I, I was surprised though. I was looking at their, their income statement and they, the majority of their money, they still make off of selling cars, selling parts, et cetera. I think only like 15% of their revenue comes from like merchandising and things like that.

[00:21:46] For an N F T brand, that should be the opposite. It, in my opinion, like 15% should come from royalties and then 85% should come from some other I don't know what that is. Hopefully someone smarter than they can figure that out, but yeah. Yeah, it's

[00:21:58] Rantum: tough to say what that is because they're, you know, as collectors.

[00:22:02] I, I think people expect to get something from that. Mm-hmm. . And as we've seen recently with the, uh, artifact uh, Nike, uh, project, you know, people are not terribly happy when the, the, the next part was the ability to buy something and, you know, maybe a discount. So, you know, I think that still has to be worked out and I'm, I'm curious where that does go.

[00:22:23] Yeah, I'm not , I'm not exactly sure where I fall overall, you know, I'm very pro royalty. Artist, but I think that's a very different thing than, than these 10,000 piece collections. You know, when I think of art, you know, I'm thinking of small collections or, or even one of one. I see that as being a sustainable model going forward.

[00:22:41] Very different than, you know, 5,000 or 10,000 because you've always got other people that are, I mean, it becomes a bigger issue for the liquidity of a project when you've got a five or 10%, um, royalty, uh, fee built in.

[00:22:54] Elbarto Crypto: Oh yeah, absolutely. Like the art box, when you have only have 200 of them, you would hope, yeah, you would hope that some sort of wallet royalty, right?

[00:23:01] Yeah. But um, it's also, yeah, like when people expect something, it's like they, they don't understand like the, the basic like lifetime value, the customer acquisition cost ratio, which is, which is completely flipped now because if I buy a doodle right now, uh, doodle will get, you know, whatever the 3% of.

[00:23:24] $6,000 sale. So let's call it $180. Like great. Uh, yeah. That, that's tough for them. . Yeah. Yeah. To give me more, uh, to give me, I, yeah. I think people definitely expect $180 more of stuff. And I know, I hear, I hear doodle putt was really fun, but. .

[00:23:44] Rantum: Yeah. I didn't make it over there. I was, I was down in Miami and I did not get to go to that.

[00:23:48] Elbarto Crypto: Unfortunately. , I'm sure, uh, I'm sure many of the doodle holders though are, are, uh, negative. Uh, yeah. So that's like one of the issues, right? Like if you become a doodle holder, you expect the world, but like the, the economics just don't work yet. Hopefully they do in the future, but Yeah. Or like, I mean, I think this, like, I think this introduces like new.

[00:24:10] New forms of business. Like if, if doodles were to, you know, create these events, but like you could lend your N F t to somebody to go, or you know, that they would pay a fee and like lend a doodle or something like that. I think like there could be interesting innovation there. It's just.

[00:24:28] Rantum: Yeah, it is, it does feel like it's still to be determined how, how to really structure these for, for a longer term.

[00:24:35] You know, it, it reminds me a bit of. Just as you saw advertising in, you know, online advertising, it got more and more expensive and, you know, there's more promotions and, and things to get people to come and, and click. And, you know, you're talking about the, the lifetime acquisition. You know, it went from early on when you were advertising on, on Google, you know, you could make.

[00:24:54] You know, you could even maybe make a profit on, on a sale or something. And then it turned into a longer and longer lifetime and you just saw that the cost go up as it sort of got inflated. And, you know, I think Barta that was maybe, you know, there was obviously more money being spent and you saw that there was a lot of, a lot of venture capital coming in.

[00:25:12] Um, I'm wondering like how that's going to start affecting. , you know, these rewards and everything. You know, if it's going to be, you know, in, I mean, I assume that it's going to get redistributed, they're like less middle men. You know, you can, it's being given directly and, you know, it's hard to recognize what is, what's, what's real versus, you know, what's sort of artificially pumped in

[00:25:32] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah, absolutely. I, yeah, and it'll probably take another year to play out to see what these, yeah. What this looks like. But,

[00:25:38] Rantum: um, what else are you, uh, excited about? Right. .

[00:25:40] Elbarto Crypto: I think definitely like the more of the in-person experiences, um, within the NFT space. I think like I, I, I am glad everyone is mad at like Live Nation and Ticketmaster right now because I, I hope that, uh, I hope that somehow the N F T space, uh, can solve for that somehow.

[00:25:59] Uh, like I'm a big fan of India Top Shot. I, the product is beautiful. It's just a, it's a great experience, but you know, like as a, as a, as a top shot, like minnow, not quite a plankton, I'll, I'll call myself a minnow. Uh, you know, I'm definitely looking for that, like further engagement of like, with, you know, with the team that I like or with the player that I like.

[00:26:22] Like how, how does that like work and, and, and sort of like what's the next step for them. Certainly looking for, you know, forward to that. And then I think like on like the zuki uh, collection, you know, I. , I kind of wanna see. They have great, like website. They have a great website right now. I think they're, you know, they're branding.

[00:26:40] It's really on spot. I'm, I'm really a

[00:26:42] Rantum: lot with, uh, with, with wearables as well, right? Yeah,

[00:26:45] Elbarto Crypto: exactly. Like I saw, I, I, I was just like walking around, uh, where I lived the other day and someone was wearing, wearing a, um, a Bathing Ape shirt and I'm like, I'm like, oh man, I, I'm kind of like, I'm hoping like bored ape supplements that, or something like that.

[00:26:58] So I'm definitely looking for these like real world experiences, like the bridge between the two and then, yeah, like in like the new innovations of, of business models for these, uh, and like when, you know, when everything will just airdrop, you know, that's what I'm looking for. .

[00:27:13] Rantum: Yeah. Right. Air when Airdrop

[00:27:14] Yeah. When

[00:27:15] Elbarto Crypto: airdrop, I'm just gonna mask token. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Just one day, just give it all to me, you know? Right. Yeah.

[00:27:21] Rantum: That would be, those were nice back, back when those were just coming out every couple weeks. Right. it, it was nice. Yeah, it was

[00:27:28] Elbarto Crypto: nice. Uh, have

[00:27:30] Rantum: you been to, uh, many in-person events or have you gotten to get to.

[00:27:33] Elbarto Crypto: I, you know, it's funny, before the pandemic I used to go to a lot and I tell this funny story of, um, I went to a, this is like really gonna show my age. I went to a Dere meetup which is, for those who don't know, is, uh, is a, a Bitcoin esque product. And, um, , they, the where I went, they ordered, um, they ordered 10 pizzas, but only eight people went to the event.

[00:27:57] So, uh, that just kind of shows you like how, uh, popular crypto was in

[00:28:03] Rantum: 2018.

[00:28:05] Elbarto Crypto: I wanna say. This was, um, I bet they didn't pay for the pizza with Bitcoin anyway. No, they, no, they did not. Uh, they used good old Uncle Sam dollars. So it's. It's really interesting to see like how how far things have come. And, and I was, uh, I went to an event, like a coup, a pretty small event, um, about a couple months ago.

[00:28:25] And, um, it's good to see the energy back with people. Um, I like to see that. I, I, uh, I think I'm gonna make a huge, you know, I'm, I think I'm gonna make a splash next year by trying to go to some of these places, but, um, it seems like, uh, it seems like, yeah, there's good energy there. . Uh, yeah,

[00:28:42] Rantum: I've enjoyed getting out to some events.

[00:28:44] Just was at Basl as I, as I mentioned, and, uh, hoping to get to N ft N YC again, uh, this coming year. They seem to just, uh, make, make it difficult and move the month every , every event, . Um, lovely. So you can't really, you can never predict it, but , did you say anything?

[00:29:01] Elbarto Crypto: Was there any interesting activations at, at Basil?

[00:29:05] Uh,

[00:29:06] Rantum: so NFT now had a big. Two blocks are so. Just for their own event. But then they had different booths within there where art blocks was there and Meta mask was there. And, uh, nine dcc, uh, which I talked about, um, recently, they had a min a shirt there, a one of 1200 was a snow fro. Oh. Uh, inspired art on this shirt.

[00:29:32] So they worked with him on that. So there were some, there were some definitely cool, uh, N F T events. Um, you know, it was a little quieter in the N F T areas than, than maybe I I expected, uh, compared to, compared to something like, I mean, N F T NYC is just, it's, it's pretty big, you know? I know there's.

[00:29:49] There's some complaints about, uh, the event. And, and I would also say that you don't necessarily have to go to, to the official event to, uh, to find many things to do. I mean, that's, that's, that's definitely the case at Basel, you know, where it's very unofficial. It's part of ma maybe it's part of Miami Art Week.

[00:30:05] I'm not sure if it's technically even, even that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right, right. But yeah, the in-person events I think are great. You know, I think people are still kind of getting out and I think part of, you know, even the, the fashion things, it's part of kind of bringing. Off the screen, off the, you know, off the computer and making it a little bit more real

[00:30:23] Right. Exactly.

[00:30:25] Elbarto Crypto: Step away from farming. It'll be, you'll be okay. You don't have to get all of them.

[00:30:29] Rantum: Yeah. Right. , So you have, you have some new dashboards coming soon, but you are, you're well right now. It sounds like you are, uh, paternity leave. Huh?

[00:30:38] Elbarto Crypto: trying to figure out how to make, how to do a swaddle. Yeah. So, oh man. Yeah,

[00:30:42] Rantum: I remember that one. .

[00:30:44] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah. Any need tips? Let me know. Yeah, I mean, I'm always looking on, you know, always looking for new data.

[00:30:48] Um, always trying to build, you know, Data dashboards really to help people understand, you know, how data's being surfaced. You know, I've got a lot of like, you know, research projects on the back burner. Really trying, really, like trying to go after this question of like N F T engagement and you know, what kind of, who will be around for the long haul.

[00:31:07] And then really, I am very curious about this defi N F T overlap. I, I think there's very, you know, I think the two are very separate right now, and I think people just assume by building a, a lending NFT platform that everyone will just come, you know, no questions asked. But in reality, the reason people got into NFTs is not because.

[00:31:33] they're also excited about uncollateralized lending. Like they don't know what any of those words mean. And frankly, I don't think , I

[00:31:40] Rantum: don't think anyone. Right. Yeah, that's good. Good

[00:31:42] Elbarto Crypto: point. Yeah. So I, I, but then at the other hand, like on the other hand, I, I think, you know, if you have a board ape, you know, if you did get lucky and held on for all this time and you're sitting on, you know, $70,000, , it would be nice, you know, to realize some of these profits or, you know, maybe you have a dog who's going off to college and, and you need to pay tuition.

[00:32:07] Uh, you know, it would be nice to realize maybe the little, these profits, um, yeah,

[00:32:11] Rantum: right. For fractional

[00:32:12] Elbarto Crypto: ownership. So I think it's definitely an un, an untapped area. I, I don't know how it'll work though in terms of UI and, and execut.

[00:32:21] Rantum: what, uh, what, what, what have you been active with in what, in your wallet Recently?

[00:32:27] Elbarto Crypto: What has been my wallet? I, you know, I'm like a, a real, a real defi, uh, degen. Uh, recently I've been, uh, I've been, I was like really bad farms that I've been going into. It's, uh, it's pretty sad. I, I've been trying to figure out recently, you know, some of these like NFT projects that have really gotten sold off.

[00:32:47] there's a lot of work going behind the scenes. So like Rumble Kongs, for example. Um, this was like a project that really, you know, had a lot of hype. Um, so I own a couple Rumble Kongs in, in full transparency. This is a project that got a lot of hype. I think Steph Curry was wearing a Rumble Kong hat at some point.

[00:33:04] Okay. ? Yeah. And like they have people working on it behind the scenes. You know, there are, there are truly people working. They are alive. Um, they are, you know, programming. I'm, I'm gonna check, I'm gonna check the floor

[00:33:15] Rantum: price right now. Here's mine. And the ones that are, they're still busy and haven't left.

[00:33:20] I mean, we know that a lot of these are going, they're going to zero. And, um, it is. You know, finding the ones that are still busy and gonna keep building through, you know, through the bear. That's, that's, uh, it's key if you can find them .

[00:33:34] Elbarto Crypto: Right, exactly. So, yeah, you know, I'm kind of looking at that area a little bit.

[00:33:38] I've been trying to like, you know, look at more like these illiquid art blocks, collections. Yeah, . I just don't know right now like what the best way. I don't know what the best way to display them or engage with like other people or like really engage with the artists is yet. So I'm still trying to like, I also just don't want to get ripped off by like buying, you know, something for like four E and then being like, what have I done, like

[00:34:02] Rantum: immediately?

[00:34:02] Right. But I mean, there's some, there are some very pricey, very illiquid pieces in, uh, in our blocks. You know, there's definitely some, some grape buys. Uh, can be difficult to tell the difference. And, you know, that that's the beauty of NFTs, right? , yeah, exactly.

[00:34:18] Elbarto Crypto: Um, you know, I, I respect what the pudgy team is doing.

[00:34:20] Uh, I don't own any poos maybe, you know? Yeah.

[00:34:24] Rantum: That is impressive. They're, they're the strength of the holders. The D Gen score is high, huh? Absolutely.

[00:34:29] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah. And they're really, uh, they're really executing there. So, um, you know, shout out to the team there for. Putting something good together. So yeah, that's like, I've been really trying to think about like, you know, what projects are still actively being worked on and, and sort of like, can you scoop up any, any good values?

[00:34:46] Uh, yeah. And like, you have to like what it is, right? I mean, like, I don't, like if I buy something I, you know, honestly, like I don't wanna sell it. I, I, uh, You know, I'll just hold on

[00:34:55] forever.

[00:34:56] Rantum: That's the best way, right? Just by what you, what you actually want to own .

[00:34:59] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That way if it goes zero, you feel a little less bad.

[00:35:04] So

[00:35:04] Rantum: yeah. Hey, we all have at least a few of those, right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Awesome. Uh, so where can people find you and, uh,

[00:35:12] Elbarto Crypto: You. Yeah. You can find a very inactive crypto account starting today at El barto underscore crypto on Twitter. Uh, I'll be back in February. Don't worry.

[00:35:22] Rantum: You do have a list of, uh, research for I, you know, people will wanna get some homework.

[00:35:25] There's, there's some .

[00:35:27] Elbarto Crypto: Yeah. If you feel like you have nothing to do over the, over the break and, uh, you wanna. do some NFT research. I have plenty of projects for people to hand out. So Is the baby here already? No. No. It, it's coming soon. Yeah. All right. Well,

[00:35:42] Rantum: so very exciting. That's awesome. Um, anything else you wanna add before we sign off here?

[00:35:47] Elbarto Crypto: You know, I would add if anyone has any advice on having a bo a dog stop barking in a shadow, like please reach out to me because, uh, it's been a, a constant thorn on my side. He's a great, he's a great pal and a great farmer, so welcome to you.

[00:36:01] Rantum: That shadow's throwing him. Awesome. Well, thank you so much Alberto Crypto.

[00:36:04] This is awesome. First interview. Uh, very excited, and we'll have to talk again soon.

[00:36:10] Elbarto Crypto: Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. All right.