Audio and transcript from the December 30th, 2021 installment of “Conversations with the Coop” with Gabriel Haines of Twitter fame, CRE8R DAO, and Clipto DAO.
To listen live on the next Conversations with the Coop - Follow Index Coop on Twitter and join the Index Coop Discord to get the real Owlpha.
Follow us on Spotify: Link here
RSS feed for Apple Podcasts: Link here
Crypto Texan: Hello everyone, welcome to Conversations with the Co-op. This is where we source questions from the Index Co-op community to gain insights from today's leaders in crypto and DeFi. Today we have with us crypto Twitter's fearless leader, Gabriel Haines. Gabriel, thanks for being here with us today.
Gabriel: Thank you for having me, Crypto Texan, you gave me high praise there.
Crypto Texan: Well, you know, I think one of your more recent claims to fame has been these Twitter videos that you've been putting out which people just love. But first, let's kind of get started on just your background and, you know, just tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into crypto and DeFi? What did you do pre crypto?
Gabriel: So pre crypto, I was also making content. I was actually doing hummus videos, so if you go on my YouTube channel and scroll all the way back, you can see me go to various hummus places in and around Tel Aviv. And I would do a review. I would say this hummus tastes good. It has this good accompaniment, all different, all these criteria. So definitely check that out if you're interested in hummus.
But I got into crypto early 2020. Because of the crash, there was a big crash, as we all remember, the Covid crash and the government said they're going to start printing money. And I remembered from my past that Bitcoin was kind of a solution to this problem. So I started to dive deep into Bitcoin and learn everything I could learn about it. And at some point, as you're learning Bitcoin, you realize that there's other things going on. There's Ethereum, there's all these other different apps on Ethereum. But the more I dove into it, I realized that a lot of activity and a lot of the innovation was happening on Ethereum.
And so I started to just, very deeply research it, use all the apps I could. And one of the key things I did was start to make videos, tutorials like explanations, content about what these apps were doing. So that also people could understand them a little bit better, but also so that I could learn because through the content creation, you have to have some sort of foundational understanding. And also, if you make a mistake, people are very quick to tell you. So that is how I got into crypto and what I started doing when I got involved.
Crypto Texan: So what are some of the early apps that you were working on for those YouTube videos, like what were some of the early apps that were catching your eye that you decided to make videos about?
Gabriel: The first app was YFI. The first crypto video I did was just an explanation of YFI, how it came to be, a background of the project, it started with the Earn protocol and then it transformed into the yield aggregators. And this was at the time when the YFI token was really, really hot. Blue Kirby was at his powers, full powers. So yeah, that got me really excited. I feel like at the time YFI had a lot of energy, there's a lot of excitement about it. And yeah, so that's what got me started.
Crypto Texan: And then you've started to, well then you did a podcast too for a while, right, or are you still doing that podcast?
Gabriel: I took a break, I had a baby two months ago, so I haven't really been able to. I don't have the time to set everything up and take an hour to talk to someone. And it's too much work. But I will get back to it.
Crypto Texan: Well, that's good. For the record, I was a fan of that podcast and I haven't seen any updates from it come across my, you know, Apple podcast feed in a while. So, you know, I kind of asked that question for my own benefit there. But I guess like just I don't know, like what made you want to start doing a podcast and throughout that podcast, who are some of your favorite guests that you had on?
Gabriel: So I was actually started to do interviews before crypto, I would try to, I had always kind of wanted to start a podcast. I was always a big fan of podcasts, and I always thought that I probably could do a podcast if I wanted to, and I thought it might be fun. So I started, you know, just my friends, or whoever I thought would be interested to speak to me. So that was pre crypto– actually, this is a fun fact, at the first crypto trial, the first crypto guest I had on the podcast, the first crypto podcast episode was with Over Analyser. So there you go.
And yeah, I've been able to meet so many good people through the podcast. Loomdart, for example, is one that really comes to mind, just to hear him speak his thought processes, things that he thinks about. That was a great conversation. Had a great conversation with Fiskantes a couple of times. The one with Zeus from Olympus DAO was pretty good. Those are the ones that I'm thinking of right now.
Crypto Texan: I had no idea that Over Analyser was your first crypto related podcast. He is a well, in my opinion, Over Analyser is a legend in the Index Co-op community. Wow, that's really interesting, I'm gonna have to go back and listen to that one. One of my favorite ones that you did was the one with Alex Gusman from NFTX, and just kind of hearing his perspective on the Metaverse and NFTs. I thought that was really interesting.
Gabriel: Yeah, that was a great one, that was kind of, I believe that was December of last year. That was right before NFTs really started to take hold. And yeah, that was a great conversation.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, yeah, it was really interesting to hear his insights on that. And so I guess recently you've kind of transitioned just from a well, you're doing a lot of stuff in the content creating space that we'll get to. But some of the more popular ones have been just these Twitter videos that you've been doing. I guess just like kind of just some meta crypto Twitter videos and then also you kind of get a little political on some. And you know, my favorite video that you have out there is the one where you're calling out Gary Gensler and Senator Warren. That one kind of went viral a little bit. So I'm just curious, where did the inspiration for some of these videos come from?
Gabriel: It's really interesting that you picked that one because I did an interview with CoinDesk yesterday and they also showed that clip before we did the interview. And, that is not like one of my more popular videos. I've had, like some of the videos, gone way more than that, but I think that it's interesting because that video is the most serious one that actually has a message that to people in crypto especially resonates with.
And you know, that message is that the institutions are failing us, you're getting vaxxed, you have to do all these things, you're getting told what to do. A lot of people don't like that, and that's kind of the core ethos of Bitcoin, is this idea that, what is it, the Prime Minister is bailing out the banks, that, you know, the government doesn't need to control your money. You can make your own decisions, you can have self-custody. So that particular video, I think, is just expressing some of those thoughts that many people in crypto have.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, and I think you're right, it's worth noting that 98% of those videos that you're producing are not necessarily politically related or politically motivated, but you do have this very unique way. I guess just like the voice you use and the way you project your voice, you can take a very serious topic and in like a kind of a tongue-in-cheek way, kind of, you've got this way of portraying it as, hey this is something very serious that needs to be said, and I'm just kidding but also, I'm not kidding and you should take this seriously, right? I think that's a very tough line to draw, and I don't think a lot of people can do that. But you've got this almost crypto Twitter general tone to your voice to rally the people.
One of your other videos was, I laughed so hard when you were like, you know, Christmas is over, it's time to stop shilling your shitcoins to your grandparents. And I don't know man, it's just great content. But then you also, you know, you call out other Twitter personalities in these videos as well. So I don't know, do you want to talk about some of those personalities you call out? You know, are you being serious? Are you joking? And do you have any crypto Twitter adversaries?
Gabriel: I don't think, I have no crypto Twitter adversaries, but famously I, famously, all of crypto Twitter knows my bout with Crypto Messiah. That was really fun. Yeah, that one was pretty fun because he was actually playing along, where most people on crypto Twitter are not actually willing to make videos of themselves, you know, saying ridiculous things or doing ridiculous things. He was willing to go the extra mile. And I think that gave me a lot of motivation to just go crazier and crazier.
But one video that I think is interesting is the, where I called out Banteg for looking at cartoon boobies. I think that is pretty, it's pretty funny because people have this interesting expectation of finance. It's got to be a suit, you got to have, you got to be buttoned up. And Banteg, you know, he's kind of breaking that mold and also, you know, DegenSpartan has been sharing hentai for a long time, but it's like, who are you to tell someone what porn to watch or what to do? It's, so it's like taking a look at that, that situation and seeing how people react. I mean, so it's yeah.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's just part of the crypto and decentralized finance metaverse ethos is that it is anti-establishment, right? I mean, we've got billion dollar protocols called Sushi, right? And you know, AAVE, a ghost, you know, and so crypto is a place where, you know, the code is taken very seriously. But the people behind the code, they don't have to be suit and tie, like you're saying. And they can, you know, post these waifu pictures on Twitter.
And you know, it really doesn't matter because they should be judged by the products they're producing and the content they produce and not necessarily who they are or what they want to do in their free time or their hobbies, right? So, yeah, I totally get that. And in the same vein of, you know, on the Gary Gensler and Senator Warren post that you did. And, you know, the anti-establishment kind of ethos in Twitter, in crypto Twitter and crypto in general, like, where do you think this lack of institutional and lack of government trust comes from? Just your thoughts.
Gabriel: Oh, well, the lack of trust, I mean, I think that people have a sense that they're being shortchanged on many things, even if they can't necessarily say what they're being shortchanged on. I think that the government, you know, they're, the system of government we have is kind of broken. And when you elect someone to run a country or run a state, whatever it is, this person has their own self-interests, and it's not in a bad way. Every person has their own self-interest. You have to make sure that you know, you're fed, that you're in good health, your family's in good health. You wanna take care of your friends, and that is just a natural way for humans to be.
And when you know you have people in power for so long that they don't necessarily remember their mission, or maybe they never had a mission. But the thing is, the incentives are in such a way that they're not going to succeed, and it's not going to benefit the people at large. It's going to benefit them and their friends. And again, I'm not trying to blame them for this, but I think that is just how the system is set up. So what I don't know, I don't even remember the question, but I'm not a big fan of the government.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, the question was just where do you feel like that lack of institutional and government trust came from? I don't know if you wanted to continue to elaborate, if you felt like you, you got that one covered.
Gabriel: No, I just think that people, like inflation, like you could take this idea of inflation, right? People don't necessarily know what it means technically or economically, what it means to print money and causing inflation. But at the end of the day, they go to the grocery store and they see that wow, things are more expensive now for some reason. And that feeling of, you know, being left behind or not being taken care of, I think, is what caused it.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, and you make a really good point too, that I mean, anytime someone's saying something on Twitter or on a podcast or on the television, they've got some incentives behind what they're saying, right? It's like, what is the purpose? Everyone's shilling their own bags in one way or another. Some are just very blatant about it, and some are, I get a little inconspicuous about it, but you know, it's like when I'm on Twitter and I'm tweeting about the DeFi Pulse Index and the Metaverse Index and the Index token, it's because I, you know, I am a contributor to Index right or any other just random projects that I happen to be involved with right now.
It's because I have an interest in that, and I also find myself sometimes, you know, it's like, OK, I need to tweet about other projects that I'm not necessarily invested in to maybe make myself appear more reliable. And but there's a self-interest there too, it's because I still want to appear like I'm not being biased by talking about other protocols, right? I think that when it really comes down to it, just humans, the way humans work is, we're all shilling our own bags in one way or another. And I think that crypto is a way that you can hardcode those incentives to not be that way. And that's, and I'm sure you agree, why I think, you know, web3 and crypto is inevitable. And what are your thoughts like, why do you think that crypto in web3 is inevitable Gabriel?
Gabriel: Well, what you are saying, it's not that I don't think that it's necessarily you can hard code the incentives, but you can, the incentives can be a lot more transparent. And that's the key thing. So as long as people know what's going on, like you have in your bio I'm sure Index contributor, right. It's not a secret. And I think that is the key.
But we can take this idea of incentives out of crypto. We've seen this on TV all the time on CNN. They're saying, you know, take the vaccine, take the vaccine. And at the end of the day, they're sponsored by Pfizer. So you can see, why are they talking about the vaccine? They're shilling their bags. They're getting money from this right? So, web3 cuts out a lot of the middlemen, so it makes processing a lot faster, a lot cheaper and can create these open incentives so people actually know what people are holding. Now not necessarily, there's ways to hide it. But generally speaking, people know how to find what others' incentives are.
And you know, we've seen this in the government. I forgot who it was, Elizabeth, Nancy Pelosi or Elizabeth Warren. One of them said we should be able to trade stocks because it's a free market. Well, you know, she's creating bills to promote the companies that she's invested in. I mean, obviously, there's something going wrong here, right? So, you know TradFi, the TradFi system is very, very slow, corrupt in many places. It's not been innovated upon and that's where crypto comes in.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, absolutely. And so I don't know, I think, you know, just kind of looking back on this year, you know, all of 2021, it's been a hell of a year for crypto and this is the last podcast I'm doing before the new year. So I think it's important to kind of take a look back. And Gabriel, you just happen to be the one on this podcast that we're going to look back at. What were some of the key points that you feel like really pushed crypto to the main stage this year? I can think of a few things, but I just kind of wanted to get your take on what were some of the bigger stories that really propelled web3 to be where it is today, going into 2022?
Gabriel: Well, Elon was a big shill this year. You talked a lot about crypto, and that was only this year. I think at the end of last, like last year, he wasn't really. He had mentioned it, but this year he went full force. And I think that makes a big difference. But I mean, it's just a compounding of things, I think that the technology is improving, that now we have different L1s that are very fast, so you have good competition that actually works. People can deploy apps cheaply, so you can actually, you know, have users on different chains, experiment different things. And of course, inflation plays a big role in that. People don't necessarily, you know, want to hold dollars or they recognize that dollars are not the best way to store your wealth. So, yeah, those are some of the things.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, yeah, Elon was a huge shill for Bitcoin and DOGE, which are two very interesting ones to be shills about, but you also talked about, you know, the importance of other L1s popping up and being fast and effective. What other L1s are you experimenting with outside of Ethereum? I know you're very involved with Ethereum, but just like what other protocols are you looking at?
Gabriel: I mean. I mean, it's just like AVAX, Arbitrum, Polygon, those are some of the ones I use. I mean, it's not, there's not one other specific one that I think is like a massive breakthrough. I mean, they're all kind of the same, but just the ability to deploy something cheaply and to have transactions cheaply. It helps progress.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, so are you on the side of, or I'll just ask you the question this way. Do you feel like Ethereum has “abandoned” its users?
Gabriel: No, I don't even know what that means. You'll still want to use Ethereum, that's why the fees are high, so. That's just, that's just Zhu talking about his bag, I don't know what that was.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, right, exactly what we were just talking about, right? Yeah, that's yeah, that's him just talking his bag.
Gabriel: Yeah. Yeah I mean, and he completely ignores, you know, scaling solutions which work, Arbitrum works very well. Or Optimism works very well. Zk works well. I mean, there's limited amount of apps up there, but I mean, the ones that do, they work. So slowly but surely, I think that people will migrate, there'll be some, I don't know how you're going to attract users. Maybe there'll be some like huge incentive programs to pull people over there. But over time, you know, naturally, people are going to migrate to the best solutions for them.
And if you're a hardcore DeFi app that you know needs max security, then you probably deploy on Ethereum. But if you're like some NFT wool game, you don't need to be, you know, you can take some, some lesser security measures.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, like you said, incentives are really what's going to drive people to layer twos, right? I mean, AVAX had Avalanche rush, which just exploded their growth, right? I think it just has to come down to Arbitrum and Optimism issuing a token. And people just throw all their assets onto those layer twos to take advantage of those incentives.
Gabriel: Yeah, absolutely.
Crypto Texan: Yeah. So let's talk about some of the other projects that you've been involved in lately. Let's start with, is it "clip-to-DAO" or "clipto-DAO”?
Gabriel: “Clipto.”
Crypto Texan: OK, "clipto-DAO." OK, so what is CliptoDAO and how did this idea come about?
Gabriel: Well, very simply, it's a crypto version of Cameo, so you'll be able to request personalized content from your favorite creator, pay in crypto, obviously, and then you will receive the content as an NFT. Which you could do with NFTs, you know what you can do with those. So that's the idea. It came about because I was doing these short form videos and there was a lot of people asking me if I could go on Cameo. And so I signed up, but Cameo didn't reply.
So that's kind of the classic crypto story. Your bank account shuts you down, Paypal doesn't let you open the account, so you've got to go the crypto route. So I basically put together, basically, a plea to CT explaining the idea, telling people what I wanted for me personally, I thought it would be cool if this product existed for me. You know, I'd be happy to get paid in crypto and give people NFTs.
So there were enough people that actually got interested in this idea, and we got into Discord and started working. And the devs have really worked their asses off the last two weeks to make something happen, and we are very, very close to launch. I saw the test website today, the test website looks great, so I'm very excited about that. And we're going to be having a launch party in the Williamsburg Hotel in New York on January 3rd at 7:00. I don't know if anyone in the audience is in New York, but you're more than invited to come. So, yeah, so that's what I'm working on right now.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, it sounds like a great idea. Yeah, you're right, that is kind of the story of crypto, is you’re going to get shut out by web2 for whatever reason, and the solution is, well, if I can't use this web2 platform, I guess I'll just build my own web3 platform. So is this going to be launched on Polygon or Ethereum? What're y'all looking at from that standpoint.
Gabriel: Right now, we're learning Polygon. Like I said, cheap fees, easy, cheaper to deploy, also you know, I want to test it out who knows, maybe this product is not very exciting for people and nobody wants to use it. So we got to, we got to try it somewhere. I could definitely see a reason to deploy on mainnet, and I wanted to deploy basically on every chain, in a V2 in the later version, but we got to start somewhere.
Crypto Texan: Yeah so what, obviously, you being a Twitter personality, are going to be offering up your services on CliptoDAO, but what other personalities have reached out, if you can say yet, to contribute?
Gabriel: Yeah. I mean, we got Udi Wertheimer and Have Fun Staying Poor, he said he would be on the platform. We got Spottie WiFi, and said he would be on the platform. We got to Bob Burnquist, who is a professional skater from the Tony Hawk era, he's going to be on the platform. We got Terrence Boyd. He's a professional soccer player, he said he'd be interested to be on the platform. So those are some of the people. I mean, right now it's, I feel like until it's deployed and there's actually people there, then you never know. But those are some people that said they'd be interested.
Crypto Texan: Wow Bob Burnquist, that's a name I haven't thought of since I was playing Tony Hawk on Nintendo 64. So but it's interesting, it's great to see that there's individuals who are interested that are outside of the crypto space, right? Anything that we can do to bring more people into the space, like something like CliptoDAO, I think, is a huge positive for the space.
Gabriel: Well, Bob, so Bob is actually, he sells NFTs. So he's a little bit familiar, and he actually created the first CliptoDAO, Mysselium, one of the people that was helping build the project commissioned him. So actually, you can, he did a shout out for the EtherRock holders on Christmas, check out that video, I guess I can, it's on the CliptoDAO Twitter if you want to check that out.
Crypto Texan: I'll definitely be checking that one out. Oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that Bob Burnquist was doing NFTs. I need to go, I need to go look. Great, I'm going to have to spend some ETH on NFTs now.
Gabriel: He's on Tezos, he's on Tezos, XTZ. So I haven't bought one of those NTFs but I believe it's there.
Crypto Texan: Okay I'm gonna have to, I don't know if I'll spend the time to figure out Tezos necessarily, but we'll see. So what else are you working on? CRE8R DAO is one, correct? What's going on there?
Gabriel: Yeah, CRE8R DAO, this is basically a marketing DAO I helped start maybe six months ago at this point. It's basically just helping projects do content marketing. So we have a bunch of content creators, graphic designers, article writers, editors, whatever, whatever it is, and we create content for these different projects within DeFi, NFT projects, stuff like that. So it's been very successful. I mean, I think they, I think we've distributed, I don't know exactly how much, but $750,000 I think, directly to creators.
So that means that the protocol pays the DAO and the DAO distributes those funds directly to the creators to get paid for doing that work. So I think that's pretty cool. And we are very close to launching our token. We had a sale, I guess, a month ago or something, and the token should I guess it will be deployed next month. But that's pretty exciting.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, that is exciting. Is that token going to be deployed on Polygon as well? That kind of seems to be your focus lately.
Gabriel: No, it's actually, it's kind of a complex token, so the token I believe is going to be deployed on mainnet, it's called Brick. And then actually, you'll be airdropped tokens on different chains, depending on who the clients are, because the token is going to be kind of like an OHM token. So what's going to happen is that part of the support that creators are going to provide is going to be able to provide liquidity for these clients.
So if a client pays us, we'll actually take a portion of that and basically create a liquidity black hole for them, in addition to the additional content that we're creating. So the token is going to be deployed on various chains, but it's kind of like you get, you hold the token on mainnet and then you get the benefits on the other chain. So I think the first chain that it's going to be deployed on is Phantom, actually, because we're working with SpiritSwap.
Crypto Texan: Wow, that was not the answer that I expected, Gabriel. So this isn't just an OHM fork disguised as a marketing creator economy DAO.
Gabriel: Well, I mean, when we started, I mean, the fork thing wasn't even a question like it wasn't even really even a trend, but I think it is interesting to be able to help clients actually secure liquidity because that is a big challenge for people. And it also creates an alignment between the CRE8R DAO and the client, because now if you're a creator and you've earned some creative tokens for working on these various projects, you are incentivized to continually create content for those projects because you, kind of by proxy, have exposure to them. So it's an interesting model, like I don't know if it's going to work. It's kind of experimental, but we'll see. I think it has some benefits.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, I can definitely see the benefits in having that alignment as well. Yeah, this sounds like a pretty exciting project. And I don't know I think it's just kind of, I don't know, just, it's a good project that kind of mirrors the trend of what's been happening, which is just people working in web3. I think that's been another theme this year. I think, I mean, obviously, if you look back to previous years, this is the year of the DAO, the year of the creator economy, the year of web3. I don't know, just what are your thoughts on working in web3 in general? And what do you feel like was kind of the, I don't know, lighter fluid that kind of drove this huge trend?
Gabriel: Well, I think that CRE8R is a very unique protocol. There aren't any other DAOs, maybe there are now, but when we started there wasn't any like DAOs-- I don't want to say there weren't, there were very few DAOs that were focused on like actually providing a service to other DAOs, most DAOs especially like a month ago, not a month ago, a year ago, it was like, OK, AAVE is a DAO. They are focused on developing their product. YFI is a DAO, they're focused on developing their product. You know, Index is a DAO , Index is mostly focused on developing their products, although you also have this element of meta governance, which, whatever, we can get into labor, it doesn't-- but the point is that it's not that there weren't many DAOs that are focused on providing a service for anyone else to do some work for another particular project.
So that was kind of an innovation in CRE8R DAO, I think. And the whole reason that, and I think that this, this hasn't really been possible for a long time is because you need a lot of components in order to make something like this work. You need a multi-sig, you need the ability, you need ERC20, you need the ability to move tokens around. We also need something like Coordinape and Coordinape was actually a key piece of the DAO. It was in the design of the DAO from day one, Coordinape.
And the ability to fairly and transparently distribute funds value across people, is something that is very cool and I think enables a lot of different types of forms of work and like coordination. So you kind of have these tools that are coming together that are enabling people to work collaboratively. And the thing you know, what's interesting is like CRE8R DAO, for example, it's a marketing DAO. But you don't really, let's say I wanted to start a regular marketing company right now. It's very hard to coordinate with people across different time zones over different countries. How do you pay these people? You know, what currencies do they accept? You know, that in itself is quite difficult so having the ability to transfer funds and value across internationally very quickly is a big driver of this as well.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, absolutely, and you were involved with the Index Co-op early days for a little bit. I mean, outside of just interviewing Over Analyser which I just found out about, you also interviewed Dark Forest Capital and Verto, or also known as AG, who are Metaverse Index methodologists. Like what has your involvement been with the Index Co-op?
Gabriel: At the beginning, I was pretty involved at the start of the project, I was going to all the meetings, doing interviews, creating content. Yeah, I mean, I just kind of moved on after a few months because for me, I get the most excited when something is new and trying to build that out, and I think that's for many people as well. But yeah, I was a Silver Owl, I don't know if I still have that status, but yeah, I was there from very early on. From pre-token even maybe, no not pre-token maybe just after the token. No, actually, pre-token, you know what, because I made a video about the DPI before the token came out. So there you go.
Crypto Texan: That's right, yeah, I remember some of my very early DeFi Pulse Index Twitter threads, I would always, I started dropping your YouTube video talking about it. Yeah, that's right, I remember that. Wow. It's just that it was just earlier this year, too, but it feels like.
Gabriel: Crazy.
Crypto Texan: It feels like a lifetime ago, almost.
Gabriel: For sure, for sure.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, so what, I don't know, what other projects have been catching your eye. Ones that you're not necessarily involved in. Like, what projects do you see out there that are just doing cool things or innovative things that you're kind of keeping track of?
Gabriel: Man, I don't know, I'm very focused on, I'm very focused on trying to bring CliptoDAO to life, to actually make this happen. So the last two weeks, three weeks, every single day I've been focused on that, trying to push that forward. So I don't, I don't know, I don't have any good, I don't have any good answers for that.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, no, that's OK. I actually ask this question to most, if not all of the guests on Conversations with the Co-op. And I get that answer from founders who were just very laser focused on the project that they're working on. And that tends to happen, I think. I mean, there's just so much going on in the space. And if you're not keeping up with what's going on on Twitter on a daily basis, it's easy to get behind or at least feel behind a little bit.
But you've got to do it sometimes, you have to take a break from Twitter and just kind of get laser focused on what you're working on. I think for a lot of us in the space, being on Twitter and working on Twitter and being in the Discord and the governance forums, and that is part of your job. But the main part is building right? And that's what you're doing with CliptoDAO. So yeah, that makes sense.
But then let's take a look back. You know, I can think of some probably misguided investments that I had made in 2021. So I just kind of wanted to get an idea from you, like, what were some of your big misses in 2021? That could just be like a token that you threw money at or an NFT drop that you thought was going to be the next big thing. What are some of the mistakes that you felt like you made, that you learned from, that other people, veterans or new to the space could also learn from?
Gabriel: Yeah, yeah. So I think that I didn't take enough profit, and I think that I held tokens too long. It's really difficult to navigate that aspect, and I don't think I could have done a much better job taking profit, especially as things were going up. So that is something that I reflect on, and I also forgive myself because at the time that I should have been more aggressively taking profit, I had literally just had a baby. So, I understand you can't be perfect, but that is something I think about a lot.
Another thing that, probably my worst, and it wasn't, I guess it's an investment, but I held a bunch of ETH in SharedStake, which is just like a staking solution, right? And they ended up, like the team ended up being like scammers essentially and like rugging the token, and that was, that was really painful. I mean, because it was just, like to me, it felt, oh, this is this is safe, this is just ETH, like, I'm just responsibly going to hold this here. But if it's not, if your ETH is like wrapped in something or like there's no liquidity for it, then you gotta be careful. You got to be really careful, and that's just something that I, that I also think about. That was also earlier in the year, so yeah.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, I don't necessarily consider myself a trader by any means, but in hindsight, looking back, there were times where certain tokens I was holding, I thought to myself, this valuation is way too high for what this token is doing right? And I didn't take profit. And yeah, I think that can be an important lesson for people to learn is, there's no shame in taking profits. So what, you 2x-ed your token, you sold and you could have 10x-ed, but you sold at 2x, you still made profit, right? And don't try to chase that, but you know, just focus on fundamentals, right?
I mean, there's two main things in crypto, I feel like it's like memes and fundamentals, and eventually fundamentals are going to catch up to a meme. Right? Memes have the ability to spread like wildfire and really get people talking about a token. But if it doesn't have the fundamentals to support it, the meme will, you know, the fire that was caused by the meme will start to cool off and the fundamentals will catch up with it. So I don't know, memes are just like this.
Gabriel: Even if it has the fundamentals, though, like that's the thing. Like Cobie wrote this piece, "The Attention Economy" and, it doesn't even matter sometimes if you have fundamentals, because in this space, things will blow up and then like, they'll go super high then they'll go super low. Even if it's generating cash. I don't think that's what's difficult. It's a different mindset that I think I certainly grew up with the idea of price to share, oh you're looking for value, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. I think that it's definitely changed. It's definitely changed.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, absolutely. I've got a commercial banking background, so that's kind of my focus too is like cash flows, generating cash flows and generating revenues. And I mean, early, even like in the stock market, once you start to look at the valuations of tech companies like Tesla and Facebook and you know, like they don't necessarily have a lot of hard assets on their balance sheet and their cash flows might even be negative. And, their valuations are through the roof for some of these tech companies. And then I had just had to sit back and reassess like, OK, so what, what is the market valuing here?
And I mean, it is the potential future cash flows of a project, and I think that's what crypto tries to do also. But then crypto has like this huge FOMO element to it as well in the sense, like if a project is starting to moon, there's just a bunch of retail investors who are just going to FOMO into it. And I don't know, it's just, maybe it's not necessarily unique to crypto, but it's just, it feels like a different dynamic. I can't really exactly put to words exactly why it is so different in crypto, but it does just feel different. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Do you agree?
Gabriel: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know, that's just... it's just how it is, that's how it is. I mean. I don't have a good answer.
Crypto Texan: No, that's fine. So like, memes are definitely important to the space like, and you touched on it a little bit, but like, what do memes mean to you in this space?
Gabriel: Yeah, I mean, it's, that's, I mean, it's complex because memes are, memes can mean many things, right? A meme could be a narrative that pushes a token. You know, very high. And I could also be me making a video about Gary Gensler. Both these things can be memes. And before this year, I didn't, I didn't understand the value of a meme. And I think that I've very much embraced it over this year, and I think it is very important. And I think it is very important.
And you know, the meme, I think me being this kind of like drill sergeant or coach or trainer or something? It's an expression of, there's something within CT that wants this or wants it because there's a very, there's an extreme, there's an extremeness in crypto Twitter. You know, one day you're going to the moon, the next day you're going to McDonald's, right? And you know. And me yelling about whatever it is, those are very extreme, it's extreme like, you got to tighten yourself up, you gotta hold on tight, like that also is a meme, like the meme of HODL right? So just, I think it is important, I think it is important to embrace the meme and to let the meme guide you in many ways.
Crypto Texan: Absolutely. So what are the memes going to look like in 2022, Gabriel? Like what is the future outlook for crypto DeFi in the metaverse? Just in your opinion.
Gabriel: Man this is such a difficult question, I don't know. I mean, I think that. A very easy one, I think, is just layer two, low gas fees, I think that's a pretty easy meme to get behind. The real thing that I think that crypto needs is just the simplicity of use, if there was a really easy way for people to engage on a much more fundamental level than having to use MetaMask and all these tools and all these apps like there needs to be a, I don't know, I think that that itself, with the possibility to interact, will create a very strong meme. Because right now, you have to, there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through, and taking the meme to the next level requires maybe better technology maybe, I don't know.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, I think just better retail experience, better user interfaces of things like MetaMask, like you said, like that will probably be a huge driver, hopefully in 2022. But you know, Gabriel, do you see yourself more as the drill sergeant or the high school football coach in these videos?
Gabriel: You know, what's the difference? I don't know. I think that sometimes I go into a video with a mindset of being like a coach, like trying to coach, I don't even know, but I think that it helps. If you're making any piece of content that helps to put yourself in that emotional state, right, like, OK, right now I am this sergeant who is yelling at CT about selling their bags yesterday. Like acting, I think putting yourself into that character, whether it is the football coach or the sergeant probably makes it stronger.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, so maybe a retired drill sergeant turned high school football coach turned crypto degen, I guess. Yeah.
Gabriel: Exactly, exactly.
Crypto Texan: Well we've got about nine minutes left, but I think I'm out of questions here. Do you have any other stuff that you want to touch on, Gabriel?
Gabriel: What are you most excited for next year?
Crypto Texan: Oh, that's a good question, man I think the Index Co-op has a huge pipeline of new products that we're working on, like the Gonna Make It Index, which we're partnering with Bankless on and Lemonade helped put that together, which is just kind of more a smaller cap, innovative DeFi protocols. So it's a little bit more risky than the DeFi Pulse Index, which has been something that you know our users and purchasers of our products have been asking for.
The JPEG Index is really interesting if we can figure out the liquidity situation there. And then we've got like a stablecoin yield index that's coming out. So I mean, bullish Index Co-op, obviously, for sure. And then man, I just think like Arbitrum, Optimism, they got to come out with a token and just to drive that layer two growth. And then if we can just get Coinbase on board to do direct withdrawals and deposits on Polygon and layer twos like Arbitrum and Optimism, I think that is going to be huge.
I think something that we all need to look out for is that the merge is coming, right? With the Beacon chain and I guess the Canonical chain, or mainnet. And I think there is this perception out there that the merge is going to reduce gas fees. And that's just not the case, right? The reduction of gas fees comes with layer two adoption and with sharding, which is, and sharding is way further on down the line. But just the transition to proof of stake, it is not going to lower those gas fees.
And when the merge happens and people come to that realization, even though it's been talked about plenty of times, you're going to get a lot of FUD from Binance Smart Chain, the Avalanche people and especially the Bitcoin community as well. So I think that's something, I don't know, that's just the narrative that I've tried to push a little bit lately. But overall, just very excited, very bullish with all the innovation that's taking place in the space. You know, I feel pretty fortunate that I get to interview all these thought leaders and meme lords like yourself, Gabriel, about what they think is going on in the space and just really excited for 2022 in general. And I, yeah, do you consider yourself a memelord, Gabriel?
Gabriel: Uhmm... no.
Crypto Texan: Well, I think you should, those videos are great.
Gabriel: I appreciate that.
Crypto Texan: And I don't know, we've got a little extra time. So two other just kind of random questions I've had you do a lot of these videos in public. Do you get a lot of weird looks from people when you're just screaming at your phone, like walking around outside or in the parking garage?
Gabriel: Well, Crypto Texan, what do you think? They think that this man is completely sane? I don't think so.
Crypto Texan: No, absolutely not. What does your wife think about these videos?
Gabriel: What does my wife think about them, she thinks they're ridiculous mostly. In fact she's started to make fun of them as well, which are on her own Twitter, which is pretty funny. Well, yeah, she's supportive. She's supportive.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, I saw one or two of her videos talking about your videos, I thought that was pretty funny. That's a nice little cherry on top to the whole Gabriel does Twitter videos saga, in my opinion. But yeah, I think that about wraps it up for us here, Gabriel. I'll just give you the final word here and just where can people go to find out more about you and the projects that you're working on?
Lemonade: Sorry, Texan, do you mind if I co-opt this word for just one second, for one last question?
Crypto Texan: Oh yeah, go for it. Hop on in.
Lemonade: Thank you, thanks so much. Gabe, good to speak again and good to see you again. You hosted one of my first, or actually my first ever podcast. And I remember we were actually speaking about memes and kind of like the power of them, and like the information density of memes, and it was interesting. I heard you recount that kind of thing at the CoinDesk interview yesterday. Since back in the day at Index Coop when I started, I was more into content creation and making memes.
At this point, I've kind of transferred to more of an executive, kind of like in the weeds type of role. I was curious, if you were appointed as Head of Memes at Index Coop, what do you think are some of the things that we could be, that we are under-utilizing or that we could be really pushing in terms of memes right now?
Gabriel: Oh, that's a tough question, I think the Index Coop has been quite good at these memes. I mean, especially something like unincentivized TVL, that's a good meme. That's a good meme. Man I always thought that the Index Coop should just embrace more ridiculous types of indexes. That was my position from the beginning, and I know that the DAO didn't really want to go in that direction, which I understand, but I don't know, maybe that could be.
But going with the trends on crypto Twitter, like hiring Hard Rock Nick to yell about Index Coop is always a good meme. But you know the thing for Index, I feel like the memes that you need to create are memes that are more focused on TradFi and more finance focused, because a lot of your, a lot of the products are not necessarily for degens. So like the memes are more subtle, they're for a different audience.
Crypto Texan: Yeah, that's true, I feel like our marketing is pretty, I don't know, institutional focused at times and I don't know, I feel like with some other upcoming projects like the JPEG Index or the the GMI DeFi 2.0 Innovation Index maybe it's a little bit they're a little more risk on maybe and maybe a little more institutional, little less institutional focused. Yeah, that's a good point too Gabe. But yeah, the thanks for that question, Lemonade, appreciate it. And Gabriel, yeah where can people go to find out more about you and the projects you're working on?
Gabriel: Yeah so the best place is on Twitter @gabrielhaines. And then from there, I got a couple @s in my bio @cre8rdao and @cliptodao. Those are the two projects I've been involved with right now. I'm spending most of my time on CliptoDAO, so I'm very excited about launching that. It should be coming soon and I hope when it's out, everyone will be able to test it out, purchase some Cliptos and that will be how the Index will boost its memes, via the CliptoDAO. So that's my call to action.
Crypto Texan: I feel a potential partnership forming here, Gabriel.
Gabriel: All right, let's go, let's go.
Crypto Texan: All right, Gabriel, thanks for coming on the show with us. Thanks to everyone who's listening live. This is being recorded and we will get this out, published in about a week. Have a great weekend, everybody. Stay safe out there. Goodbye.
Gabriel: Thank you Crypto Texan, I appreciate you.
Crypto Texan: Absolutely. See ya.
Host: @Crypto_Texan
Audio Engineer/Mixing: @LloveraFrank
Marketing Image: @jackyjackdiller
Transcript: @qjuniperus
Conversations with the Coop - Gabriel Haines - CRE8R DAO, Clipto DAO