Crypto: The Game Companion Podcast, Day 5: Psyops on Purple, First Jury Whale Discovered, Interview with Scott Kominers, the key man from today's challenge

[00:00] We're Boys Club, and you're listening to the official Crypto the Game companion podcast, brought to you by Lens. For 10 days only, we'll be hitting on the biggest moments, juiciest gossip, and hottest takes from season two, Anon Island. Smash the subscribe. I don't know. It doesn't feel right. Perfect. No notes. [00:19] night five i i i'm deceased i mean i'm still in the game we're still you're still standing i'm still standing that's what matters huge huge we've made it halfway through [00:30] I can't believe it. I honestly can't believe it. I was sure I was gonzo tonight. Okay, big night. Tonight's big story is purple tribe trauma. Natasha, you're going to tell us all about it. Also, the first jury whale. [00:46] has been found. We're going to get into both of these in the gossip section of the pod. Two big headlines for tonight. [00:52] Big. But first, the vote results. 102 people eliminated this evening. 469 players remain. Season one favorite on my team, who I tried to save, which we will talk about. Christian was eliminated tonight. People got too loud in the chat and they were marks. Not Christian, others. And they're now gone. [01:17] people get annoyed by the organizers and snipe them. Today's immunity challenge was a puzzle challenge. We have Scott Commoner as a guest on the pod. His book held the key to solving the puzzle. So he's going to talk about that. But before we get into that, some love for our pod partners, Lens. Big love to Lens. They are amazing partners for this podcast. You can follow us on

[01:47] is at Dina's. [01:48] Dina's at Dina. Mine is at Natasha. You can make your Lens profile at Lens.xyz. I will say there's been a lot of great stuff coming through on Lens for and related to Crypto the Game. We're going to shout out some of our favorite posts on Lens later on in the episode. But yeah, if you haven't yet grabbed your Lens handle, do it now. Let's get on with it. Tonight's interview, we have Scott [02:18] author of The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform the Way We Buy, Sell and Create. Scott also teaches at Harvard Business School and is a research partner at A16Z Crypto. We love to see the brightest minds of our generation playing, spending hours playing this game. Scott, welcome to the show. [02:39] Thank you so much. I don't know if I fit that qualifier, but I've had a great time with the game. [02:47] prior to going up in smoke. And I'm very honored to be on this podcast. Great to talk with you guys. Thank you so much for being here. I'm also on the Purple Tribe. [02:55] with you or was on the purple chart with you. So I feel a special bond. So I just want to start like with the basics. We have quite a few people who listen to this podcast who are actually not playing and they tune in to understand what happened today. So Scott, your book held the key to solving today's immunity challenge. Do you just want to tell us a little bit about the challenge high level from your perspective? [03:15] Sure. So

[03:18] First of all, structure of these challenges, often there's a, you know, sort of a puzzle or some piece of information you're trying to gather that you sort of then turn in as the answer. And in many cases, including today's, it's a race among the tribes to be the first to find that answer and submit it on the website. And then you get immunity. This, by the way, of course, [03:35] you know, sort of puzzle games and challenges, lots and lots of history and, you know, including in reality shows and so forth. So this is like the crypto native version of it. Spoiler alert, sorry for anybody listening to this who's still reading the book, has a hidden puzzle somewhere in it. And that was embedded in the book. It was a sort of feature we created originally. [03:53] And crypto the game, [03:56] wrapped an immunity challenge around the embedded puzzle. It's actually like a great metaphor for crypto, right? This is like third party innovation on top of [04:05] the way the system was already set up right we created this asset we put it out in the universe ctg you know [04:11] Was aware of it and like decided that... [04:14] solving the puzzle was going to be key to unlocking immunity. [04:19] And then how this last bit came together, right? So I was, as you said, I was on the purple tribe, I was playing the game. [04:25] Um, yesterday I, you know, it was like a real... [04:29] I got a ping from Dylan and it was like a real red pill, blue pill moment, right? It was basically like, look, there's this activation. [04:36] that we would like your help with. [04:39] But for fairness reasons, if you're going to help us do this, you have to exit the game, right? Like you would have sort of unfair information advantage. Yeah.

[04:49] And so, you know, like [04:51] Do you take the red pill and leave the game and do whatever the thing is? Of course you take the red pill, right? Of course. When Dylan calls, you pick up the phone. Exactly, exactly. So the C2G producers had this, you know, concept of wrapping the puzzle and [05:07] And, um... [05:08] So we sacrificed me, right? At noon, it was announced that a player had willingly sacrificed themselves so that the game could continue so that immunity could be found. And then on the back end, [05:22] If you solve the puzzle in the book, it gives you an instruction to go and submit an answer somewhere. We modified that answer submission page for the day so that when you got there, it then said, oh, by the way, you know, go submit on Crypto the Game. Also, by the way, if you do in fact solve the puzzle and submit on that page, you can get a special puzzle, you know, sort of book plate and or NFT. So, you know, there's a real reason to do this even outside of the game. If you have a copy of the book and you're lying around, go find the puzzle, solve it. You can still get stuff. [05:52] Love it. The many layers. What a complicated web we're weaving here. It's so awesome to hear it all come together from your perspective. I know that people have been really, really [06:02] intense with these puzzles on day one's immunity challenge. I think it was either day one or day two. At some point as people were trying to figure it out, there was just like a random person's profile who was surfaced that was like, [06:14] everyone thought maybe held the keys to profile 22 right exactly exactly and uh people showed up or someone showed up at his office this man had nothing to do the game yeah so i'm just wondering i i know you were revealed early on in the the puzzle did any weird stuff happen in our chat people were like oh he he teaches at harvard business school this is where we can find him

[06:44] Do I go? And everyone's like redact. The Harvard Blockchain Conference is this weekend, so there's a bunch of crypto people in town anyway. [06:51] Yeah, so luckily nobody, to my knowledge, you know, sort of showed up in my office looking for me or for me to hand them a secret clue or something of the sort. [07:02] I did get a handful of DMs from people saying like, "Hey, can you tell me the answer?" which is just sort of like, "Come on, are you serious here now?" But mostly, [07:12] Aside from the fact that some people called attention to some like various like NFTs that I had forgotten I had and like reached out and were like, "Whoa, you minted that?" [07:20] "Whoa, I minted that?" You know, there was nothing particularly weird, luckily, and people seemed to have a good time with it. [07:27] Great. I'm so-- I'm glad to hear that. [07:29] I am going to share this. So we have a spreadsheet in our tribe, very highly organized tribe, as you know. And the spreadsheet is sort of like the Bible of this tribe. And it has every player listed. It's keeping track of eliminated or still in it or when there was immunity, who has immunity. And so when it was revealed that you had sacrificed yourself for the game, [07:54] Everybody started to dig into all the spreadsheets. And where your name was, you had left us a little clue. [08:00] That was basically like, I think it was, it was like, [08:02] nine letters or 10 letters and it was like word in uppercase word in lowercase word in uppercase but it was it was indecipherable what it was and is this was this you or did is am I learning that it wasn't you?

[08:16] I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you serious? I'm totally serious. Deep psyops on your team, Natasha. [08:24] What? Okay, because what happened with our team is we went off completely on what we thought was a clue from you. [08:31] which we thought was like a little olive branch. - Part of the deal. So I, you know, when I was sacrificed, I exited the Telegram channel at noon sharp. I think it was technically 12:01, 'cause like the button press was hard. But no, I had no, I have no idea what you're talking about. - This is wild. This is, oh, we have, [08:49] We have some deep going on. We have a mole because also during the elimination, we had some drama that we're going to get into later in the episode. But we spun our wheels completely on this because we were like, oh, we have an insider clue and sort of like moved away from just moving through the puzzle as crypto the game intended. [09:08] Can you believe? Wild! This is the first I have heard about this. So somebody impersonated me after I exited all of the like tribe docs [09:17] in order to throw the rest of the tribe off. Wild. Wow, crazy. Anyway, I'm glad I'm getting to, this is going to be huge news for the 40 people. Right, exactly. This is like, I'm glad we're talking right now because I would never have known about this and the tribe would never have known about this. You know, and somebody's days are numbered here. Like, you know. Uh-huh. [09:34] Someone sent a meme during the very stressful elimination that we just had. And it was like, it's the girl in a, she's like in a horror movie. And she's on the phone. She's like, the call is coming from inside the house. And I'm like, where we're at right now with this drive.

[09:51] Okay, Scott, will you be buying back in to the game? I think given the circumstances, probably not appropriate. So I'm just going to have to cheer on and, you know, sort of maybe, maybe stare at the [10:04] I saw them in my own time. [10:07] be ready for season three. But I'm definitely continuing to follow and continue to support the tribe and so forth. [10:13] and have already made friends here. So like, you know, we've got, we've got more work to do. Nice. I love that. I love that. I would love to hear from you. I've heard you're a Survivor Watcher. Obviously you're very much into [10:24] crypto and blockchain and in this world. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on like what you think the best strategy is. If you were still in the game, how you would be playing it, like some advice in our last few moments here. Wait a minute, we've just confirmed that I'm not re-entering the game and that I've got to like play the next season. And you're asking me like, what are your secret strategies? What are you going to be like, what? [10:43] What is your game plan going to be? What were your big moves planned? [10:48] Oh my gosh, well right now I'm learning that impersonating me is a great move. It is. The, you know, sort of go into the spreadsheet, pretend to be Scott, you know, no. [10:57] Look... [10:58] First of all, I mean, I've been a Survivor fan since... [11:01] almost right after, almost when the season launched. Like it was, you know, I was in, I guess, high school when it came out and like was watching then and, you know, have followed it up. And, you know, I'm like the type of person who like listens to the podcast and like follows it like... [11:14] Certainly one of the core lessons... [11:17] of Survivor is that [11:20] there are strategies that are hard to replicate, that basically when something works once, people then sort of core optimize against that, never try to do again. For example, the Purple Tribe drama tonight,

[11:34] presumably... [11:36] people will work really hard to avoid that particular blind side going forward. As a game theorist, right? You know, so I'm a, I'm, [11:44] a game theorist and a market designer in my day job, as a game theorist, one has to then think about like multiple layers, right? So like once you know that everyone is going to anchor and like try really hard to optimize against one specific category of strategy, [11:58] Your question is, how do I defeat [12:00] the strategy that they will be playing as a response. It's like once you know that people are going to be working really hard to set the voting schedule early, to be very careful of her, you know, can you do something that disrupts against that strategic play? [12:13] It's a chess game. [12:16] Exactly, like sort of like a higher order chess game. And of course, you know, there's turtles all the way down or all the way up or whatever. [12:24] But the first order thing I would say is that [12:26] one should be careful if you're over-anchor too much on some individual strategic objective, that people can exploit that anchoring. And so you have to be ready for whatever the natural response to that anchoring is. Wow, I love big brain. [12:39] That's a big brain. I'll do whatever you say, Scott. I'm following the Scott strategy from now on. Scott, I'm going to be at the Harvard Blockchain Conference this weekend. No way. So hopefully we'll get to meet you IRL. [12:50] Absolutely. Totally. The Vinyl Bakery English Muffins are on me. Sorry, I promise it's not a product placement. I really like this bakery. They're mentioned in the book. [13:01] I love it. I'll have to go. Awesome. Amazing. Scott, thank you so much. This is awesome. Appreciate you. Perfect. Thanks for having me.

[13:12] Some gossip. Some time for some hot goss. Time for the gossip section of the pod. [13:17] Okay. Let's start with some jury. [13:20] The jury whale that has been identified. Okay. So received some intel from a secret source. The source will be protected. And this is on, I suppose, on chain. So I think it can be verified and anyone can find it. The first jury whale has been found. This is a person or per person's individual address that has scooped up 25 jury NFTs. So for folks who aren't playing, part of [13:50] show and the gameplay is structured is that your spot in the game is tied to an NFT. And when you're voted off, your NFT turns into a jury NFT, meaning that represents your vote in the final night of the game where everyone comes back to vote for a winner. So your spot, your NFT, your gameplay token is valuable. And basically someone has come in and bought up a bunch of them, presumably to [14:20] final. [14:20] They also scooped up two active player tokens. So there's a voting block. [14:27] that is a paid voting block that's emerging that, honestly, we don't want to see that. We don't want to see that happen. I want someone to win. [14:37] out wit outlast outplay is the survivor motto and you have to prove how you have done that it's not out bid you know totally i don't like it at all anti-jury whale uh so whatever we can do to stop that let's do it on chain sleuthers go do your work identify this person blast them on twitter we will highlight it in the next episode that is my call to action call to arms one more thing before we get into the purple tribe trauma i also got another tip that there's a hit list i'm not

[15:07] and say what the hit list is. But there is a quote, boys club cabal, unquote, listed on this hit list. Joke's on them. [15:16] And there's no voice club cabal. So I don't know what that's about, but I love to think about someone just spinning their wheels trying to find a voice club cabal. You guys think that we can be this organized? That's insane. Did you listen to last night's audio? Okay. [15:31] Okay, we're moving on to the purple... [15:34] Drama. We're ready for it? I can't wait to lock in here. Oh, lock right in. Okay. So this is what's happening. Purple Tribe has been, for those who do not know, [15:42] the most organized, the most coordinated. We are in lockstep. It is kumbaya. We're holding hands. We've been, it's been an incredible team to be a part of. Like type eight organizational wise, like processes, systems, all that. Systems, processes, but also good vibes and love for one another. We're not all business in there. It's really nice. And really quite a few people who are very engaged as well, which is great because they've got the information and you [16:12] They understand that other people can't be quite as engaged. And when someone pops in and says, hey, I'm just getting back from X or I'm putting my kids down for bed, [16:20] That's fine. Come back in. We'll catch you up. And we're pinning things that people can keep up to date. It's really nice in there. Generous. So... [16:28] Leading up to the vote. [16:30] An anonymous player that is playing who is amazing, whom we all love, is... [16:35] keeping... [16:36] this the open source spreadsheet completely up to date okay and people are and we have a whole strategy if it's going to be eight votes it's going to be this it's going to be 10 votes it's going to be these people and it's based on pulling down telegram activity pulling down snake activity it's all data based for the most part and then there are some soft skills that are also accounted for and there was a score that was associated for each person and then we had

[17:03] the people based on the score. Yes. Very organized, very fair. [17:07] Okay. And then people towards the, like we're coming up on, you know, eight, eight o'clock and people start coming in who have not been as active and said, is there anything I can do to be saved? Um, [17:17] and trying to vouch for themselves. And we're working with them. We're seeing what we can do. Okay. Is there, does your personality, uh, a factor into your score? Is there a personality score? I wouldn't say there's a personality score, but there is some soft skills that are weighted, which I appreciate as a soft skilled person, as a smooth brain individual in the group. [17:39] It's a sliding scale. Okay. So, okay. So, [17:44] Then it comes out 10. We have to eliminate 10. So we start, we start putting into action and people are coming in. They're saying, who do I vote for? Who do I vote for? And I see that this anonymous player, let's call this person 400, 400 is in there and they are organizing. And I said, let 400 cook. [18:01] Give some space to this. We're all going to get our assignments momentarily. And this person is in there. It's organized and we're seeing it. And people are... [18:10] In awe. [18:11] It like truly is art. We're watching an artist work and there's probably 30 people in the spreadsheet all watching. [18:18] And then it's like ready to go. The sheet is done. It looks beautiful. 400 says, okay, we're good to go. Go get your assignments. And there had been a few strategies of people saying, I know I'm going to be out. It's Friday night. And they had either given their NFT to someone on the team so that they could vote on their behalf or.

[18:38] they had said, "These are the windows I'm going to be available." So we had planned around those windows. [18:43] All of a sudden, the communication. Yeah. Really good communicators. We're all in therapy. [18:50] I'm in the sheet and all of a sudden, [18:52] The tab that says Friday night vote goes blank. [18:55] But you can see all the, you know, like the colored tabs. Okay. And everybody's like, wait, what? [18:59] And then the chat starts being like, what's going on? What's going on? And then all of a sudden, one by one tabs just start disappearing, being deleted, deleted, deleted. And I was like, oh my gosh, cyber warfare. I'm watching cyber warfare happen right now. And then everybody starts freaking out. People start trying to, and then everybody's trying to fix it. So then everybody's like putting it, uh, what is it called when you put a history, historical mode, revision? Yeah. Revision, revision, revision. And then it's going revised, revised, revised. And it's like moving quickly. And then people are like, I made a copy. I made a copy. And then [19:29] People are making copies and it's like, [19:30] It's tense and it's stressful. And then... Oh my God. It's like watching when those people who like go and throw soup at the Mona Lisa. Yes, exactly. Activism. There's activism happening. And I... Then you're... [19:44] only people can only coordinate so much we're in there we're saying okay who's gonna who's gonna lock down the spreadsheet who's gonna make a view only who's the owner so then we're doing this then there's like okay who's gonna get added access then people start spinning other side chats because now the kumbaya is broken and people are saying what's going on who's the coup it's a coup at this point it's a power vacuum exactly and then the votes start rolling in and we see oh no christian

[20:14] So now, [20:16] Christian for the listener is a season one favorite. [20:19] There's a whole thread about how strong of a player and I, what I understand to be very generous of a player, generous kind leads with compassion. And, and so we're now like, we've got to stack the votes. We need to figure out how we get 10 players with more votes than Christian. [20:38] And people are starting to get panicked. When can I vote? When can I vote? And I'm saying, it's fractured. And I'm saying, hold steady, lads. Player 400 and this other player are working. Just let them work. And you can tell. Now this person's working on the spreadsheet. And it's, [20:57] It's... [20:58] It there's pressure. It's not the same artistry. We got to move and I'm feel so bad. And so we're all sort of there waiting and they're working and people are like, I have to go. Like I'm either getting on a plane or I'm going out. And so we start just assigning votes. We're just assigning whatever. 617. Sure. 620. Sure. Someone's coming in saying, no, I'm 620. You know, it's, and then there's anonymous and non-anonymous players. So it starts to get really intense. [21:28] Anyway... [21:29] Then the sheet has been locked down, but there is then additional people are fucking with the sheet still. And it's like, are people trying to help? Or are people- So you say people, you don't know. It's person. Or people. It's person. It's a little, yeah, who knows? Who knows? Okay. Okay. And this sheet- There's no evidence that it's multiple people. There's no evidence that it's multiple people. No. Okay. So-

[21:51] All this has happened. Long story short, Christian didn't make it. And we did pretty good. There was, that was the only real hit that really got us. That was part of the core, I think, group that was working there. But it was cyber warfare is the only way I can describe it. [22:09] A misinformation campaign. A hundred percent. And I was like, man, I feel violated. I was watching the spreadsheet. [22:17] I was like, this is... I'm violated right now. Okay, so I mean, I know you probably won't want to tell me this, but like, what are you guys thinking about doing to root out what is clearly a mole in your ranks? Well, now... [22:27] even more so after this podcast episode, I'm going to get into the details of today because it was psyops that have been there from the beginning and we did not know. [22:34] We should have expected it. Like, you know. [22:37] Come on, what are we all doing here? But Scott, [22:40] was on our team. As I said earlier in this podcast, he was sacrifice himself. And then in our spreadsheet, his name was changed to what we thought was a code that he was leaving us. And the code that we thought he was leaving us was... [22:54] QED, QED, QED. Three times. [22:58] and then his name in telegram was also changed that and everybody then i just told people scott didn't do that people still kind of don't believe it they're like are you sure is he lying does he have another nft in the game i'm like you guys haven't met scott he doesn't seem like that kind of guy no he seems like a pretty straight guy here he's not a stand-up guy the purity of the

[23:22] That sent us on a wild goose chase for the hour that everybody was solving the puzzle because we were like QED, QED, QED. What could that mean? I feel like I can diagnose what's going on here. Someone bought in to... [23:33] Your tribe that someone you guys put a mark on yourself by getting immunity like night one or whatever it was. Someone bought into Purple Tribe. [23:41] and now is architecting your demise. Yeah, I think that could be true. But the one caveat I'll say is, [23:48] are data master. [23:51] has been keeping an eye on the blockchain and seeing everybody who's coming in and then checking that against telegram who's coming in so this person has to be quite [24:00] Deep cover. [24:01] Deep cover, they're deep cover. So, and I just want to say, this is kind of funny. This just shows you how like loco and crazy you get when you're playing this game, the QED, QED, QED. [24:11] The answer to today's puzzle was everything come together. [24:15] That was the, the key phrase, the phrase. And we were like, Scott, what a guy he was telling us QED, QED, QED. He was telling us those three words. [24:28] *laughter* [24:31] you just you're crazy like my brain is broken yeah yeah yeah destroyed anyway I'm happy to live another day I I feel shaken I'm [24:44] Like everybody after the vote was like, I'm shaking. I'm throwing up. I'm quivering. Like everybody was totally wrecked. [24:52] Wow. Okay. Well, thank you so much for walking me through that. It was a great time.

[25:01] We've got the post of the day. We've got a few here. One from orb.club. [25:07] Someone named Bucket? [25:09] who said, [25:11] Lesson of the day, colon, trust no one. [25:15] You should mint this post. [25:17] Trust me. So dumb. But I kind of like it. And then, do you have one? Oh, I like this one. This one's also on Orb in the Crypt of the Game Club from msilb7. Wow, what a very important, totally legitimate event I have on my calendar. And it says, sync 12 p.m., which is when the Crypt of the Game immunity challenge is revealed. Sync. [25:45] that's really funny okay there's a post here from ox katie on twitter it says not me playing crypto the game and then it's a picture of a cat with sunglasses and a hat on and it says sorry can't join stand up today not feeling so well and then it says getting in the tribe chat and like the paw is like on the screen [26:03] so dumb i love that as the theme where it's just people just getting out of work and playing the game instead because it is all consuming that's what you have we split our meetings up today i was like well you go and go to the new and i'll go to the one and then it'll be fine [26:18] okay all right see you bye [26:22] *music*