Ep. 68. Feelings Check in: $BALD and onchain sleuthing, Gucci NFTs and physical redemptions, being a terrible negotiator

[00:00] I mean, honestly, the boys club digital world that we've created is what a minefield. Welcome to the feelings check in a feelings first look at the news of the week. Takes no one asked for on topics. Everyone's talking about. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is boys club. Wait, is it just boys club? It's just boys club. The boys club podcast. No, no. [00:24] Just boys club. [00:25] Welcome to the podcast. Here we are again. I am so disappointed in myself, so disappointed in myself in doing this research. [00:34] for this episode. [00:36] I realized I made a huge error [00:40] In the Gucci story. [00:43] Okay. Do we have to issue a retraction? We do. [00:47] We must. [00:49] What happened? I'm like, I feel so stupid about it that I'm like, I should just, why do I have a podcast? Just quit. Just quit. I just kind of just throw in the towel. What happened? Okay. So I talked about how [01:03] Gucci is running this experiment with the shoes, the NFT, NFC chipped shoes. [01:10] And that that... [01:12] It's so amazing because being like a part of LVMH, you have all these experiments you can run. Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, that's Dior. You didn't talk about Gucci shoes. You talked about Dior shoes. [01:21] Oh, okay, great. Yeah. Wait. [01:25] Okay. Oh my God. The shoes? Yes. The fuzzy shoes? This whole time. Nope. You were accurate.

[01:33] Thank God. It was Dior. Thank God. I remember because of the logo and the reels. Yes, you're so right. I was just like, I'm a fucking idiot. The whole time I was getting my wires crossed. You're not. You're a genius. Thank you. What I am thinking a lot about is... [01:48] what's [01:50] the Boys Club particular angle on [01:53] both the stories that we're curating [01:57] and also the retelling of the stories and my particular insecurity about it is [02:01] If you want like crypto news, you should go to Bankless or somewhere else. Like there's other places that are covering... [02:07] these stories in a way that [02:10] is informative. It might be better for you if you're looking for a certain type of take. But if you're looking for our take, then you're in a great place. You're in a great place. Hey, Natasha, if someone wants to get into crypto or is looking for a better way to trade, where should they go? Oh, Dina, I'm so glad you asked. The place to be is Kraken. It's more than a crypto platform. Kraken is your bridge to the new world of finance, a simple, gorgeous place to [02:40] interface that's so easy to use. From degen to day trader, first timer to full timer, make your trades in just a few clicks. Go to kraken.com backslash boys club, sign up in just a few minutes, and you can even get started with as little as $10. We love you, Kraken. [02:55] So this is the feelings check-in. We are going to talk about two stories today. [03:00] We have not talked to each other about these stories, so we're learning.

[03:04] in community together how should we start i can go first [03:08] Okay, so I am going to be talking about the bald token rug pull. [03:14] There's lots of different layers to the story. On its face, this is a story about a classic rug pull. [03:20] For new listeners... [03:22] A rug or rug pull is when a crypto project makes itself out to seem super legit, but it is fraudulent. And the founders take off with all the money after basically like juicing the price of the token. [03:34] rugs are very like well suited and particular to crypto because of two reasons. One, how easily tokens can be launched and hyped, especially on social media, like hype cycles, it can all happen like really quickly. And because of anonymity or pseudonymity. [03:51] It's so common [03:53] And it's so easy for people to go. You could jet off to Belize. It's not like you have some sort of LLC with your social security attached to it. Exactly. Just on the rug pull definition. Is it that they make promises about the token token? [04:09] And then it can take a lot of different shapes. Okay. Okay. [04:13] But yes, typically there's like, this is what this token is going to do. This is this utility or the roadmap. You see it a lot with NFT projects. And then they just kind of take the money and bounce. It's pretty easy in NFT projects because you're like paying for the NFT and then you don't have to deliver the roadmap. There's definitely versions of a rug pull, which are like a longer con rug pull where you're just like, yeah, we're going to do all this stuff. And then you never really do it. And that's less dramatic. This one is very dramatic because basically all happened in the span of,

[04:41] two or three days. Oh my god. Okay, well, so it was quick, hot and cold, just quick facts in the story. And then I want to get get as quickly as I can into my personal feelings about it. Because I [04:50] That's what's most interesting. [04:54] But basically what happened is that someone... [04:58] a pseudonymous person [05:00] set up this thing called the bald token. [05:04] They set it up on base, which is an Ethereum layer too. If you listen to this podcast, you know we had Jesse Pollock on. [05:10] wonderful guy bases is Coinbase's layer two. And bald, the token was reportedly or assumed to be named after Brian Armstrong, who's the CEO of Coinbase, who is bald, whatever. Okay. And so there was like, whatever, a little hype cycle swirl around that it exploded. And, [05:29] Okay. [05:30] It attracted over $68 million from traders. What? It pushed prices up 4 million percent from its issuance. [05:40] Insane. [05:40] It's like your classic meme coin story where these things just get like really hot on social media and then everyone's talking about them and then the bots are picking it up and then it like just feeds on itself. I hate it here. It's crazy. I know. I kind of hate it too. For listeners that are paying very close attention, they'll know that base main net is not live yet. I don't fully understand this part of the story, but I guess you can deploy stuff there. [06:10] I had to use this deck called Leet Swap. I had never really heard of it. We're really in the trenches of Twitter, traitors, and that stuff.

[06:18] sort of underbelly of not where you and I live is not where you and I live on Kraken doing buying her in the safety of our centralized exchange. [06:29] Okay, so people start buying bald, it starts going crazy, and then... [06:35] Basically what happened is the next day, essentially, um, [06:38] the tokens deployer [06:40] removed 25.6 million dollars in liquidity from the trading pool. So that was this particular way that he rugged, which was basically like, I'm going to pull off all the money from the decentralized exchanges where people are making these trades, so that they don't have any counter to exit with. And it basically locks everyone into these tokens. [07:04] their value plummets 95% and then the store is over, right? Because that person is now out with $25.6 million in liquid assets. I want to play a quick meme. [07:17] Oh my God. She's multimedia. I want to play a quick video because... [07:22] I think this really encapsulates... [07:24] the vibe of these two days around bald. So you're looking at a screen share of someone else. And it's there's multi segments. And there's a guy in the corner who's talking and then he's showing his charts and stuff like that. It's kind of this crazy chaotic visual. [07:39] But the audio is really the incredible part of this. The market cap is 2.168 trillion dollars.

[07:49] And now the mark. Oh, oh, we went to zero. So that's kind of it. [08:00] Ha ha! [08:01] What is so funny to me is... [08:03] This is what people think I do for work when they hear that I work in crypto. [08:09] I couldn't be further from my lived experience. I couldn't be further from the truth, but it is hilarious. It is hilarious. So yeah, just the highs and lows in this industry. Really, one second you're up and the next second it goes to zero. And that's what happened with Bald. Now, an interesting element to it, which I think is worth discussing, which is that somewhere along the way, people started interrogating the on-chain activity of the wallet that deployed the token. Okay. [08:33] And- [08:34] They really quickly found out that, okay, this is someone who knows what they're doing. It's a very sophisticated whale. A whale is someone who holds a lot of crypto. And it's someone who they were able to see through the on-chain activity. Like they traded on DYDX. They voted on proposals in SushiSwap. They have had millions of dollars that were flowing through this address. There's a blockchain trail that this wallet has left that is rich. And so people were like really digging into, okay, what's this person done? [09:04] of $26.5 million as a bad actor. One thing that [09:07] folks saw was that [09:09] They had some trading activity that was tied to known [09:13] Alameda wallets. [09:15] And Alameda is the hedge fund that Sam Bakrenfried owned and was sort of a sister company to FTX. And the only reason that those Alameda wallets are known is because of other like crypto sleuthing that has happened on the blockchain. Those are now known entities as Alameda wallets or were Alameda wallets in the past. And so now they're starting to triangulate, OK, this person that just did the bald rug.

[09:39] has some connection or had some connection to alameda in the past and so everyone immediately is like okay it's sbf okay this is why the story was going around okay yes so people are like it's sbf turns out sbf only has a flip phone he's on house arrest yeah so and like it was some story where it was like the only website he can he can only read like news and entertainment website so i'm picturing this guy like in his mom's basement reading e-news all day like that's the only website [10:09] the conspiracy theorists were going crazy. It's probably someone who was at Alameda at some point or whatever. The speculation aside and like conspiracy theorist stuff aside, have you seen the consensual doxing trend on TikTok? No. I have literally no idea what you're talking about. Okay. So consensual doxing is there's this woman who is this incredible internet [10:33] sleuth detective. Okay. And she's like, you can send me anyone. I could figure out who they are. The consensual doxing element of it is people are signing up and being like, I bet you can't figure out who I am because my social media presence is so mysterious. And she's like, I can and he does. And then here's the steps I took in order to dox you. It's insane. It reminds me of this TikTok that I saw that I was obsessed with. And it was this Gen Z creator, [11:03] a picture of when the sky in New York City was crazy because of the wildfires. And the caption that this girl put on her video was...

[11:12] daddy coming into my shot and it's the street in New York and this really handsome older man like walks through her picture and then she basically goes on. [11:22] an absolute rampage of the internet and like shows you on TikTok, takes a screenshot, zooms in, gets a picture of his face, puts that picture of his face into this thing on the internet, and it finds all these other pictures of him. And then she basically gets all the way down to DMing him on Instagram. And it's like insane. Anyway, it reminds me of that. Totally. Very similar, very similar vibe. And so when I think about the story with ball token, and in particular, [11:52] sleuthing that was happening on chain. [11:55] It really... [11:56] exposes this, what I think is a very cool part of [12:01] crypto and this technology and feature of this new money, which is, it's all transparent. And we have receipts for everything that we've done. And so right now, that's being applied only to basically how the money is flowing around in between these crypto traders. But [12:17] What I think is a really fun thought experiment is how does that get extrapolated out to [12:22] into the social realm in a few years time when more and more activities on chain that isn't necessarily financial. And so I think about the consensual doxing trend and how much fun that woman in particular is going to have as soon as she has this wealth of information that's blockchain data and your girl with the daddy on the street. We had Gabby.eth on our podcast a few months ago talking about kind of this idea of... Great episode. Yeah.

[12:52] really great episode of on-chain activity or block explores being a new sort of storytelling medium. So I could not be more into it. Like I would love to fund, produce, create a show about on-chain detective or on like an on-chain du moi or TMZ. And I don't know, I just think it's really cool. Like I think there's so much fun to be had. And obviously this is a story about people losing money and that is sad, but [13:15] There's [13:16] a lot more that [13:18] I think in the hands of the right type of person, [13:22] It could be a lot of fun. [13:23] Like, I'm not a Taylor Swift fan. [13:25] at all, but I will watch any [13:28] TikTok video. [13:29] about the Gaylor conspiracy theories. I will watch any of those videos. I will literally stop. I'm stopping scrolling. I'm locked in. It's not about Taylor Swift to me. It's about that individual person's intensity by which they're [13:42] researching and the level of detail that goes into it, I just find really fascinating. And I want to see people apply that to the blockchain, but also a different type of person that's not like necessarily trying to find crypto exchange exploits. Yes, like social reputation. [13:58] Social reputation stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Like Bethany Frankel.eth, what you could find if she was. I would be delighted if that were a world we were living in. I've become obsessed with this woman, like obsessed. And I have watched a handful of Real Housewives episodes, but she loves TJ Maxx. Have you seen this? Okay. This is a tangent, but she loves TJ Maxx. She goes there all the time.

[14:28] But she'll like find some really good stuff too. And she's a TJ Max Maxie, like all the way, Maxinista fully. And she bought these Manola Blahniks. She was posting about them. She's like, look, my name is Manola Blahniks, only $7.50. And the internet, of course, jumps on her and is like, those are fake. There's this huge scammer culture around return items to places like [14:52] TJ Maxx and Northstrom Rack and Off Fifth and all those discount places. What's happening? People are returning fake versions of those shoes. Faux Chinatown versions of the Manola Blahnik to a TJ Maxx and then getting the exchange. Individuals are? Individual people. Wow. And then she buys them and she has a fake pair. And so she's reporting on it and showing she got the real [15:22] her non-profit she was like it's tough because you can't put it on the individual cashier at a tj maxx to know the difference between an authentic totally manila blonic and a fake monologue anyway she's been reporting on it and sharing her journey and if it were all on the blockchain you know what fixes that blockchain fixes that bethany [15:44] Give us a call. That is hilarious. I love that. Anyway, all that to say, it's a similar, it's a parallel thought process to what you're saying. Anyway. Great. Okay, so bald. Those balls.

[16:10] We're switching gears. Bethany Frankel, actually, I would love it if I was just reporting on her social media presence, but she... [16:20] is not talking about this. So we're talking about Gucci products. TLDR, Gucci is giving away physical products to some of their NFT holders. Here's the deal. We're at story time. There's quite a bit of layers, as there always is with these luxury good NFT projects. What is that? I don't know. Why do they have to be so complicated? My God. Love Gucci. Obviously, absolutely obsessed. But I'm feeling fatigued by my beat because all of these are just like... [16:49] We're 15 layers in to the thing. It's a Russian nesting doll of digital goods. And it's just impenetrable to get through is my top level feeling. But there's some good stuff in here. So I'll. [17:02] This story starts in March of 2022. Gucci's creative director, Alexandro Michel, [17:09] He's Italian partnered with digital artist, uh, [17:13] Wag me son. [17:15] to produce a collection called Gucci Grail. Gucci Grail was a project produced with Tan KTF, which was an NFT project that tells the story of this digital artist, Wagme-san. There's a bunch of lore about this digital artist and his floating city in a parallel universe called New Tokyo. I honestly do not give one fuck about lore. [17:37] I'm just like, I'm not a child. I do not need a storybook about these things. I do not understand adults who are into lore.

[17:46] "What are we doing?" Do you get it? - Yeah. I think if you're a gamer, [17:50] it's an important part of the experience. You're predisposed to look for that because it's the environment that you're [17:57] in and you're spending time in and it is richer if you know that Mario and Luigi [18:03] are from Italy. I don't know. It's literally the dumbest example of lore. The depths of your gaming knowledge. [18:10] - - [18:11] Really bad. But I'm not a gamer. I have no idea. So I don't know. It does not interest me. You can just think of it as world building instead of lore. I think lore has kind of a Dungeons and Dragons feel to it. Boys Club does work hard to build a world and an atmosphere around Boys Club. It's not fantasy driven. So I don't know. [18:32] Yeah, maybe that's the core issue for me personally around it. Yeah. Anyway, this was a big part of the storytelling around this particular project, the Gucci Grail project. So... [18:43] This collaboration between 10KTF, which was an existing NFT project, and Gucci. It was called this Gucci Grail NFT project. [18:52] And a main premise of that project and purchasing it was that holders could then [18:58] dress their specific PFPs in different Gucci pieces. [19:04] Obviously this was to a certain set of specific NFT projects, [19:08] Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, World of Women. So I could dress my... [19:12] Bored Ape in a Gucci piece. Exactly.

[19:16] Where? [19:18] On the internet. Online. [19:20] That's always where I get caught up in the digital fashion stuff. I'm like, where, what's the, I'm not doing that on Instagram. My understanding is that you would purchase this NFT. You then have the ability to dress them in this metaverse world. And then you can make it your PFP. [19:35] So it was signaling that you had gotten this Gucci piece. The other aspect of this is that holders were gifted something called a Gucci vault material NFT for the holders of the Grail. So if you had gotten the original NFT, you were gifted this Gucci vault material NFT. And there was like some mystery around the utility. It was unclear what you got, but you were gifted it. There's just over 2,800 NFT holders of this project. And then they were gifted these NFTs. [20:04] Right now, the gifted one. [20:06] are going for around $600. Cut to more recently, [20:11] We're in... [20:12] July, August, and at the Christie's Art and Tech Summit. [20:18] Gucci, head of Metaverse, and [20:21] Yuga Labs chief creative officer are at this summit. Our invitation must have gone last time. For real. Excuse me, sir. They're at this summit and they announced that holders are going to be able to burn their NFT in exchange for a physical good. You can burn one token and get a wallet. You can burn three tokens and get a duffel bag. Cool. So cool. I'm into this slice of the story.

[20:51] and 10 KTF. You connect your wallet. You can burn your tokens. And then in exchange, you get one of these bags. I feel like it is going to be an absolute nightmare fulfillment wise. And people are going to get doxxed. I don't know how people solve for that. I feel like that's a real touchy point. These two products are very classic Gucci. It's the wallet, red and green, interlocking G's, a classic Gucci look. And then same for the duffel. But they do have the 10 KTF logo on the front. So it won't be sold completely. [21:21] publicly so you won't be able to buy this if you aren't a holder so there's some can't buy rarity of these actual physical products there's versions of this bag and this wallet that are without the logo that are in the gucci collection that are sort of classic if you're looking at buying them straight up or buying this one it's pretty comparable it's like a few hundred dollars difference at this point [21:43] you have to believe that the rarity of these items will increase their value and especially their resale value since there will be this limited availability of them. The story is not really about that. It's more like direct utility, direct products for NFT holders. You're not burning the base asset that was used to dress your PFV. You're burning sort of this mint pass or this gift that you were given from Gucci. And that's interesting. So Megan McDowell, who does a

[22:13] and luxury fashion who writes for Vogue Business, had a great article on Gucci, [22:20] NFT world metaverse meeting IRL world. She had some... [22:26] reporting from the actual summit that was direct quotes from the chief creative officer of Ugalabs and this [22:36] gucci metaverse director and and i think her take is really interesting about [22:42] how these two entities are collaborating over the course of the next year and why they're collaborating. And the NFT project 10 KTF is owned by a company called Weenu. [22:55] that WeNew company was purchased by Yugo Labs. So basically Yugo Labs owns this project and owns all the existing projects underneath the WeNew company. And so this partnership between Yugo Labs and Gucci totally makes sense because they've been doing this sort of like world building and metaverse collaboration for about a year. So one of the quotes she pulls is, [23:16] from Figgy, who is the chief creative officer at Yugo Labs. He says, the aim of projects and partnerships like the one with Gucci is to put culture, quote, on the blockchain and to bring Web3 into the mainstream. He added that the Yugo Labs approach is about a differentiated way of reaching audiences and building experiences. Last year, Yugo Labs raised $450 million in a $4

[23:46] in terms of blue chip NFTs. So that's a direct quote from Megan in her Vogue business article. And I think there's something about Yugo Labs partnering with one of these big brands that... [23:59] personally, I don't think is that interesting. I'm just like, it's PFPs. It's the same sort of like NFT to maybe a digital thing to maybe a physical thing. Like it's so removed from a mainstream audience. The fact that this guy is saying the reason we're doing this partnership is because we [24:18] culture onto the blockchain. It's tough. I actually think that that quote was a mess for him. I think that when you're trying to [24:25] bring technology when trying to bring crypto or web three to people instead of thinking how am i making their experience or how are we enriching their lives with this technology and using that as like the first principle i [24:40] Get concerned. Yeah, totally. There's a bunch of other stuff that Gucci's doing. She ends the article talking about how Gucci's doing stuff with, like, AI and that... [24:50] the gucci and christie's is owned by the same parent company and so it's also sort of funny because i'm like man all these businesses are like nest egged into each other and they're like [25:02] It makes sense why they're all working together. They're all in cahoots. [25:07] Together. They are all in cahoots. I think that the burning for physical redemption is interesting. So when I first started reading this story, I thought that they were burning the base asset that they had purchased. Yeah.

[25:21] to get the bag. [25:22] And my first feeling was this is a really great way for some of these experiments that these huge... [25:30] heritage brands have done that they don't feel great about, or they're not that excited about anymore, or they don't want to fulfill on the roadmap. [25:36] for them to like have a fresh start that I think is healthy and good. I don't think that that's some bullshit. I think it's okay, burn this. We're going to give you something in return. That's a limited good. That's a physical product. And I think that that's actually like a very legitimate path forward for some of these heritage brands that, [25:53] don't want to fulfill on a specific metaverse strategy that a year or two later feels wrong because this space has developed so much. I think that's a totally legitimate path. I thought that's what they were doing. They have this other sort of sub NFT that was part of it. And I do think it's really cool. And [26:09] I like the idea of these being true digital receipts and burning digital receipt to get something, a physical product, I think is a great idea. But all of these projects are so layered and complicated and to... [26:21] have them as a claim that they're [26:24] intended to... [26:25] have web three adoption just doesn't, [26:28] work for me. Okay. [26:30] So that's the story. Gucci, love to work with you. Sorry for just dumping on your campaign for 10 minutes. We'd love to work with you. [26:39] kraken is a crypto og they have more than 10 million clients around the world that trust them with their crypto needs they're one of the largest crypto platforms out there with some of the highest security standards in the industry so you can rest easy that your funds and your privacy are safe for the keeping and if you need help along the way as we all do sometimes kraken's award-winning client support team is available 24 7 every day of the year this is a true story i've actually hit them

[27:09] We had a lot of questions about our account and they were so nice and so patient. It just takes a few minutes to get started today at kraken.com backslash boys club. [27:17] Should we go into some personal feelings? Yeah. I feel like I need to take a negotiation class. Great. I feel like... [27:25] I don't know how to negotiate for money. [27:28] And somewhere along the line, [27:30] Everyone else did. [27:31] And everyone's using those tactics on me. [27:36] And... [27:37] I am... [27:39] Just, I just don't know how to negotiate. I just do not know how to do it. [27:42] And so, and I guess related to that is like selling generally. Does it make you feel bad? Like, I feel like there's like a shame in the way that you're talking about it. Yeah, there's a little bit of shame. Yeah, there's a little, like, I think I... [27:56] I... [27:57] take pride in a general... [27:59] competency that I have. [28:01] in my professional career and that's one area that I felt really exposed in. [28:06] Yeah. [28:07] And also, yeah, just related to that is selling. [28:11] We're doing a lot of selling right now. [28:14] at Boys Club Media Inc. Hi at boysclub.vip if you're looking to be sold to. [28:23] Yeah, that's just that's that is a product of us being bootstrapped and not having venture funding. And like, so we're just like really constantly looking at. [28:32] what the bank account balance is and [28:34] how we can fix it. But I've just found myself in like three, two or three negotiations this past week where I'm like, man, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. So that's my feeling. I, I respect that. I,

[28:48] appreciate that you like have some, you do have a lot of self-awareness around it because I'll be like, what do you think? I think we should do this. And you're always like, I don't know. [28:57] I don't know. [28:58] And I'm like, okay, that's better than... [29:00] having conviction, like you're self-aware enough to know that that's not your area. [29:05] Yeah, I'm not going to fake it. I won't fake that. You won't fake that, which is all that sales is. So we're sort of at an impasse with the two... [29:15] issues here. My feeling is [29:19] I feel like things are going really well. Things are going really well. I'm feeling like really confident about our... [29:28] path forward. I feel like we did some really great work in... [29:33] Paris. [29:34] with [29:35] some members of the team on... [29:38] where we're headed as a vision and I'm such a planner. [29:43] that I really need [29:46] that type of outlook and goal setting and strategic thinking, those types of days and meetings are really useful, I think. And especially for someone like me, [29:58] I need that [30:00] setting to... [30:02] feel like the work that I'm doing day in day out is leveling up to something that matters and not to get lost in like the nitty gritty details of the work and feel discouraged by constantly questioning, is this the right work to be doing when you have these goalposts around why you're doing that work and what it's,

[30:20] setting you up for. And so I am feeling good about where things are at. I think there's some things that still need to come together for that to feel there to be like a real confidence under us and some [30:32] Not as much insecurity around where the media business is going. But I feel like it's been a good week. It's been a good week. Which is a nice... [30:42] Feeling. Great. Let's end it there. Okay. Okay. Bye. Bye. [30:50] Dina, where are we going to be in September? We are going to be at Permissionless in Austin, Texas. Permissionless too. It's happening. And we're curating the culture track for the conference. So if you're into the stuff we talk about here, you should come and have a good time with us. So email your boss. Tell them that you need to go and buy your ticket now. They will never be as cheap as they are today. And we also have a promo code in our Discord for Boys Club members. Come hang in Austin. [31:18] Friends. [31:20] This is where we make an ask. We're in our call to action era. It's CTA times. Rate and review this podcast. Subscribe to our newsletter. And if you're feeling extra generous... [31:32] Send it to one friend. [31:35] Thank you for listening. We love you. Bye.