part1 edited draft
[00:00:35] Droste: so I was curious. We’ve both been with Bankless DAO since about the beginning. Didn't you join it at Genesis back in May 2021?
[00:00:44] Liquidiot: I did, I actually looked into this because Discord recently started letting you check when you joined a server. So it says when you joined Discord and when you joined a server. And, I joined in in May of, May 5th, I think it was.
[00:00:58] Droste: Yeah, that was the day.
[00:01:00] Liquidiot: right in the beginning. Sure. Yeah. I was kind of reserved. I, I got the airdrop and I found out about the Discord, and then I was like, well, I'm gonna check this out.
[00:01:07] I had a story, like we got that airdrop and I told a friend and I were, cause when I first got into Crypto, I was looking at more like being a trader, which was a mistake. I knew vaguely about the technology, but I thought, oh man, this would be an easy way for me to do something that I could kind of get my head around and try to make some money.
[00:01:25] So we were trying to chart and kind of wade our way through that and make some quick turnarounds. and I had been listening to the Bankless HQ podcast and it was, I think it was April? It might have been April, literally. I said, well, you know, I've gotten a lot of value from this podcast. $22 is a, is a big ask, but for what I've gotten in return, I think it's worth it.
[00:01:48] So when I, I'll just subscribe, get the premium content and just see how it goes. And like a week later they did the actual airdrop of the Bankless DAO token. So I just snuck in there cuz it was only to people who had been premium subscribers. So I got that airdrop of, with the 35 or what? I think it was more than that for some various reasons.
[00:02:07] And it was like, at the time it was like five grand or something.
[00:02:10] And my friend said, you should sell
[00:02:11] Droste: was a couple grand.
[00:02:12] Liquidiot: Yeah, you should sell. I was like, yeah, you know, I, they're gonna do something with this. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna ride this wave and see what happens. And then sure enough, the DAO opened up and those of us that had the prerequisite amount got to be, level ones.
[00:02:25] And I joined up and I was just kind of hiding in the corner for about the first month I would say.
[00:02:32] Droste: You and I both hid in the corner for a while.
[00:02:34] Liquidiot: Yeah, well you were, you were much more out there than I was because,you became a level two quite quickly, you know, when that was all happening. And then I kind of looked up to you and I remember when I first got started in the
[00:02:48] Droste: That was a mistake.
[00:02:49] Liquidiot: that was your first mistake. When I was trying to get more involved in the AV Guild
[00:02:53] I approached you, from memory to start doing the POAP distribution
[00:02:57] for you. Cause I it
[00:02:57] Droste: starts with POAPs..
[00:02:58] Liquidiot: yeah, I wanted to take some of that work off your plate. yeah, so that's kind of how I got my start. I, I started, you know, joining in some conversation trying to add my opinion but not kind of be overbearing on, on the, what was happening.
[00:03:11] Cause I have a tendency to do that. So, yeah, it was a slow start, but I was there in, in May along with the, the small handful of us, I guess. And it's just really blossomed from there, so to speak.
[00:03:24] Droste: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we kind of went to that early affinity group, you know, AV nerds basically. And I can say that because I am an AV nerd, it's always been kind of a hobby for me. Uh, but that kind of brings me to, to you, I mean, we've never really talked about this before. obviously you do really fun voiceovers, and for me it seems like you're more than a hobbyist, you're more of a professional.
[00:03:51] and it's kinda like the difference between a photographer and a gwc or a guy with a camera.
[00:03:59] Liquidiot: Uh huh. Yeah.
[00:04:00] Droste: Have you done that professionally and is that, have you had some background there? Is it just a kind of a hobby you've been working on, on this side? You know, maybe picking up a gig here and there?
[00:04:11] I was kind of curious about that.
[00:04:13] Liquidiot: As far as like AV in particular, or voiceover, or what aspect do you?
[00:04:16] Droste: Yeah. Yeah. Specifically voiceover, cuz you're kind of known for that and voices you do. But I kind of wanna talk about the other video stuff too, cuz you're pretty skilled with that as well. But
[00:04:27] Liquidiot: Okay. well, we can start with the, the voiceover stuff. some people know this, many do not. I'm an only child. my parents both worked quite a bit. We owned a small grocery store growing up, mom and pop grocery store. I spent a lot of time there. but they were very busy during the week, running a business, and I had a lot of time alone.
[00:04:46] So I used to do voices to entertain myself. I guess just not even thinking about it, but just kind of naturally I gravitated towards that, having conversations with myself just out loud and trying to play the different parts. We all have conversations with ourselves from time to time. and then I just got kind of known for, I was the class clown, voted by my peers in high school.
[00:05:10] probably as part of that, I used voices and comedy as kind of a defense mechanism of sorts. in junior high school, I started to grow out more than I grew up. and that kind of had, a lot of that put me in a interesting spot as far as like, you know, being picked on and made fun of. so I used voices and comedy as kind of like a way to cope and a way to deflect and a way to take attention and redirect that, and that kind of turned into to voiceover.
[00:05:39] So in college, I, I didn't do anything in college at all related to theatrics or theater or voice or anything like that. But, after I graduated, I moved to Seattle and there's a lot of opportunity there. And even before that, I was in a, a smaller town called Spokane, and I got into some theater stuff there.
[00:05:56] did a couple shows. we did, I did a play that was like, I forget the name of it. It's not, it's a reading play where you're not, like, there's not like scenes and you're not like dressed up. Everyone's just kind of in a line, and I forget the term for that. but you're all just reading your lines in front of a, a, a crowd.
[00:06:10] It's very deconstructed, and stripped down. I did a couple auditions. I had a,I had a, agent, God, why, I'm ha I'm struggling for just simple words here. I had an agent, I did some, background stuff on some films, but I never had any formal training. Until I moved to Seattle and then I was like, I want to see what I can do.
[00:06:30] And I found an acting coach, specifically voice acting. he did both. He was fantastic. His name was James Coburn, and he had a nice space, a nice stage. And within that he had a, a vocal booth, an audio booth. So, for two years while I was living in Seattle, every week on Thursday, I would go downtown near the Space Needle and study voiceover.
[00:06:50] He would give us some prompts and we'd each have our time in the booth, which I loved opening that door to that like whisper room. Basically just a closet, fully padded. You had your, your light in there, you had your stand, your, like your music stand style to put your script up there. you had your headphones, he was on top
[00:07:06] Droste: And like the control booth
[00:07:07] Liquidiot: in he had this kind of huge construction like platform.
[00:07:10] He was like way up there cuz it was also used to produce the shows that they would do. And you would just, you'd put on your, your cans and you were just in a different world. It, it was like, there was no camera there, but I was, I was on camera. I was in it. Yeah. And it was amazing. Just every week I look forward to, and there was a, there was a group of about eight of us in my class and we would all share booth time.
[00:07:30] Droste: and, what, what
[00:07:30] and I'm sorry. What grade was this?
[00:07:32] How old were you?
[00:07:32] Liquidiot: This was after I finished university.
[00:07:35] I was on the five year plan because I, I switched majors midway through.
[00:07:38] I
[00:07:38] Droste: did the five year plan too.
[00:07:40] Liquidiot: I don't regret. It was fun. this was probably, uh, early twenties when this happened. So yeah, I, I studied voice acting for a couple years there. And then I was starting to look for work and I got a couple jobs, but around that same time I decided to travel and that's when I moved to Japan.
[00:08:03] Droste: Ah, and the rest is history.
[00:08:05] Liquidiot: Kind of. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. we can go into more just I guess real quickly, I completely stopped any kind of voice acting and acting when I first moved here. I've been here for almost 17 years. in the middle I got some, I was in some commercials. I sat on a bus. Um, I was in a, a medical film.
[00:08:26] I did some, uh, textbook audio stuff, but I didn't really get into it. I was thinking about it, but the proposition of trying to find an agent in a different language was difficult for me. and then along came Bankless DAO and I found an opportunity to kind of use those skills again. But also during that time, I had taken up photography.
[00:08:50] I was a semi, I guess you could say semi-professional family photographer, children and family photographer. I was paid. I don't know if I'd call myself professional, but I did paid work and that's where a lot of my camera equipment came from. And it has been since repurposed for more video work.
[00:09:08] But I started out as a stills photographer. I did that for like five or six years.
[00:09:12] Yeah.
[00:09:13] Droste: Okay. I, for whatever reason, I felt like I've seen some of your work and it, it seemed to me that like you had been doing this for longer.
[00:09:24] Liquidiot: Which part?
[00:09:25] Droste: That's a compliment.
[00:09:26] Liquidiot: Thank you. Oh,
[00:09:28] photography. Uh, yeah. I picked up photography in university. I had a an S L R film camera. Which was an interesting concept to a lot of people now. Like if you're old enough to remember film cameras, which a lot of us are, you know, you had your roll, you had to pick your ISO and you had a set number of shots and you didn't know what you got until you got it developed.
[00:09:48] And it really, you know, taught me to take my time with framing and, and lining up a shot and thinking about, you know, the composition. And then, I actually got a nice camera for my wife for one of our anniversaries, thinking that it was something that we could enjoy together. And then I ended up just kind of running away with it, so to speak, cuz I got really into it.
[00:10:09] She's like, yeah, this is all right. I was like, ah, this is amazing. So I got super into it. I was trying to teach her about it and that kind of taught me more about photography. And then I got, I started taking like a lot of photographers, I started taking pictures. People were like, these are really good.
[00:10:21] Can you take pictures of me? and then I started doing, some of that work and then I got into like, family photography. I guess all in all, I did that for about. well, you know, I guess I've been doing it. I haven't stopped. I don't do paid work anymore cuz I'm quite busy with DAO stuff. But, I, I probably started taking photos seriously, maybe 10 or 12 years ago.
[00:10:41] Droste: Cool. Cool. Now you take comedy seriously.
[00:10:45] Liquidiot: Hey, I, we, yes, yes. We take money seriously as well.
[00:10:51] Droste: and money. Yes. That's actually the line, not comedy.
[00:10:55] Liquidiot: Yeah.
[00:10:55] Droste: I blew it. Damn it. See, it just proves it wasn't rehearsed.
[00:11:00] Liquidiot: there you go. I'm sorry. Does that, does that answer some of your que I, I ramble and
[00:11:04] Droste: that's great. I've been meaning to have that conversation with you anyway. We just never get to it.
[00:11:13] Liquidiot: Yeah, so I, I've managed to amass a fair amount of equipment through my photography work and then wanting to get back into my voice acting cuz I really love, I love acting, but I hate being on camera. And some people might find that odd because I've started doing a video series for the DAO recently, but part of that has been like me trying to conquer a fear of being in front of the camera because, I, I love putting myself into a role or acting or being a different person.
[00:11:40] but I hate having the spotlight on me directly. And I don't know if that, maybe some people can click with that and that makes sense. But that's kind of how I feel and that's kind of what's directed me to what I'm doing now, I guess.
[00:11:52] Droste: More of a supporting character.
[00:11:54] Liquidiot: Yeah, I tend to like being behind the camera and that's why I got into photography in the first place.
[00:11:59] I.
[00:12:00] Droste: to "fucktography"?
[00:12:01] Liquidiot: "Fucktography." That's a different, that's um,
[00:12:03] that's for a different podcast. Sorry, I didn't, I got my notes confused here. Yeah.
[00:12:07] Droste: different platform.
[00:12:08] Liquidiot: Different platform. Yeah. Different way, different way of life over there.
[00:12:12] Droste: So, yeah, I didn't realize you were doing that just right before you got into DAO stuff. So yeah. DAO stuff. yeah, you've really gotten plugged into a variety of things and you've probably avoided getting rugged by doing The Rug.
[00:12:25] I found that, that a lot of the work I do at Bankless DAO, I've, I was kind of lamenting, or probably mid-year and actually actually was in 2021 when everything was going up and I missed all these opportunities cuz I was working.
[00:12:40] I'm like, damn it, I, you know, if I wasn't doing all this work for the DAO, I I would've caught this opportunity. Well that opportunity was, was a very sharp knife that was falling or was going to fall.
[00:12:53] Liquidiot: You miss catching it?
[00:12:55] Droste: Exactly. So, you know, sometimes life works out and,
[00:12:59] Liquidiot: Right.
[00:13:00] Droste: and so, you know, all the time I've spent with the DAO and I don't regret any of it.
[00:13:04] Liquidiot: I guess, yeah, to speak to that I got in, uh, like a lot of people that got in around that time, there's just so much happening all at once. And again, you didn't wanna miss out because you always wanted to be, it's seriously that FOMO thing, there's economic opportunity at, at every corner.
[00:13:19] And just like, it was just so interesting as well, like, what's happening over here? What's happening over here? Um, maybe I can help out. It was real easy to get yourself over extended, which is kind of what I did. I mean, you and I were heavily involved in the AV Guild doing multiple roles at the same time because we just didn't have enough bodies.
[00:13:36] And, and then getting involved in other guilds, guilds and other projects, and it, it was, I don't regret any of it. And it was amazing and I was glad I was able to help out where I could. But it's almost like after I established myself and kind of figured out what it was I wanted to do and where I could provide the most value, um, I started shedding a lot of thoseresponsibilities or, or those involvements just because it wasn't productive.
[00:14:01] Like if I wasn't able to devote myself more to that, I was preventing maybe somebody else from being able to do that
[00:14:08] instead of
[00:14:09] Droste: exactly. I kind of felt that way myself. I mean, I had been guild coordinator in various roles for a few seasons and I just felt like, geez, I shouldn't just keep putting my name up there cuz people vote for you cuz they recognize your name. even if, whether you're doing a good job or not, I feel like I probably did a pretty decent job.
[00:14:27] Liquidiot: I would agree with that.
[00:14:28] Yeah.
[00:14:29] Droste: Thank you. Well, it's not fishing.
[00:14:30] Um,
[00:14:32] you also want to try new things too, right?
[00:14:37] I really wanted to give a shout out to Neo Logos, um, because he's the one, he hasn't been as active lately, but he has his own show on his own podcast that he's had for a while.
[00:14:48] And this was before he joined Bankless DAO, and it is called Stoic Coffee Break.
[00:14:54] But anyway, um, Neo logos is the one that approached me. I think it was like, late July of 2021 when he said, Hey, he DMed me. And he said, Hey, have you thought about being a guild coordinator? Putting your, raising your hand for that? And I'm like, uh, not really. I don't, what do I know? And so yeah, he kind of got me into that,
[00:15:13] but this is not about me.
[00:15:16] Liquidiot: I think, well, I think everybody, probably has a similar story where there was one or two people, it was kind of like the gateway for them to get really involved in a particular area. I mean, the, the tendency is to join the DAO and then just, get every single tag you possibly can.
[00:15:31] And I've seen people do that. They're a part of every single project and guild.. and that's fine if you're trying to figure out where you want to go. But I would just say be careful with that cuz it's, it can be, that fire hose is no joke. So when you can find where you fit in, well, I would say just direct your focus towards that.
[00:15:48] That doesn't mean you can't do other things, but you really need to, be deliberate with a lot of your actions. Otherwise, you know, we just kind of go in circles. And I think you do find somebody that's kind of like that, that role model or that crypto mentor or that shepherd that just says, Hey, you know, you seem like you'd be good at this thing, or you wanna help me out over there.
[00:16:08] And then you just kind of, you find your place and you find your people. I mean, we're all our people in this space, but I think, you know what I mean, where you could kind of really direct your focus and really feel like, oh, this is where I belong, kind of thing.
[00:16:22] Droste: yeah, yeah. One of the things that's always been hard for me to do is ask for help.
[00:16:27] Liquidiot: Right.
[00:16:28] Droste: It's always been hard, but it's gotten easier here. People are willing to help and, I got myself in a little bit over my head. Like you, it's, uh, suggested too many things and it was getting late in 2021, and I'm just like, I am spending so much time on this stuff and I am not doing my best work, frankly.
[00:16:48] Liquidiot: Uh,
[00:16:49] Droste: And, uh, I felt like I needed to shift a little bit. but sometimes you don't know what you don't know or you sign up or you wanna say yes
[00:16:59] Liquidiot: right.
[00:17:00] Droste: because they need somebody to do it. anyway, I don't know. I just thought, you never know. And, I don't regret anything. Sometimes you feel like you're spinning wheels though, you know, projects that maybe you try to spin up and they don't go anywhere.
[00:17:14] But I feel like you learn stuff from it. You learn new ways of working together; what you thought you wanted to do, and maybe you don't enjoy that much. Or you suck at and it's too hard to get good at it.
[00:17:30] Liquidiot: Yeah, well, I, with some of the, some, some of the most valuable skills I learned, I guess, eventually I had to come o come over that hill, but saying no, saying no is hard for me at first. And then also saying, I don't know, is very hard because I think humans have a tendency, especially when you're in, positions where you're sharing or giving information that you don't want to appear to be a person who doesn't know what they're talking about.
[00:17:53] You try very hard to be an expert in areas, at least me in the past, that I really am in over my head. So being able to say no when people ask for help, not in a rude way, but just upfront saying like, I do not have time for this. I would love to help you, but it's just going to be more trouble for you because I don't know if I can commit.
[00:18:11] So I'm just gonna have to say, no, thank you very much for your consideration, or asking me or seeking me out, but no, I can't do this right now. And then also like, Saying, I don't know. I have no idea. I don't have the answer. Somebody comes to you instead of just saying like, well, yeah, uh, yeah, I, you're sure, sure.
[00:18:26] Like, like pretending that, you know, that's kind of like, I don't know. I don't wanna see, the big thing is I
[00:18:31] don't
[00:18:31] Droste: Home Depot experience.
[00:18:33] Liquidiot: yeah. I don't wanna waste people's time. You know, we all, it's the most, it's what everything is. Everything comes down to time. That is the only resource if you think about it. And I'm trying my best to not, impose or waste other people's valuable scarce resource that
[00:18:49] we're all kind of chasing, Right?
[00:18:52] Droste: You can't know everything. And even if it's in your field, if you're a specialist, you still can't know everything.
[00:18:57] Liquidiot: Yeah, absolutely. It's just too much stuff.
[00:18:59] Droste: No, no. Anybody that tells you they are, you know, they're lying. But we won't talk about SBF.
[00:19:06] Liquidiot: Yeah. There, there are no, there are no experts. There's just people with a lot of knowledge and very strong opinions, cuz you can't really know everything. I think I might have stolen that from Jordan Peterson. I dunno
[00:19:19] Droste: Oh, what's the old phrase? If you can't something, something, baffle 'em with bullshit.
[00:19:25] Liquidiot: Oh, I thought you were gonna say, if you can't beat him, join him. That's
[00:19:27] Droste: well, there's that, but you know, there's scammers in, there's been scammers since the beginning of time. Who hasn't been approached in the parking lot at the mall by somebody that, you know, they were supposed to meet somebody and gosh, I just need $5 to
[00:19:46] do whatever, or the TV that like, gosh, I meant to, I was supposed to deliver this.
[00:19:52] I just happen to have this extra TV in the back of my truck, and gosh, I just need to get rid of it.
[00:19:58] Liquidiot: Would you mind? That's gonna be, that's gonna be one of the most difficult, in my opinion, or in anxiety inducing things about being part of the space and the DAO. It's, it's trust, man. So if you can find. People that you can trust and that you network and, and work with, that's probably one of the most valuable things you can have in this space.
[00:20:21] Cuz even people, you kind of know, there's just so many people and they're messaging you about stuff and it's like, I have to be careful cuz I don't, I don't know. I don't know a hundred percent who you are. that's probably what, yeah, one of the toughest things. letting yourself trust other people in this space because like you said, there are a lot of scammers there.
[00:20:39] The motivations for people can be different. I mean, we're all, we're all looking for money. I mean, the technology is great. It's fun being here. I like building stuff. But anybody who says they're not looking for some kind of economic incentive is kind of lying.
[00:20:54] And then trying to figure out like what, what people's intentions are, what they really want here, what they're doing, what this link is.
[00:21:01] Don't click on this link! Your life will be over kind of thing. It's intense. It's intense. Oops, sorry, I just bumped
[00:21:07] Droste: Yeah. And then opportunity cost, right? And whether it's this space or anything else, I mean, This is something I always have an issue with, with the educational system, is you're expected to make all these choices about, career path and then an an educational track that takes you on that career path without ever having explored the career to see if you even like it.
[00:21:32] Liquidiot: You have no idea.
[00:21:34] Droste: I mean, I don't get that, that makes no sense to me.
[00:21:38] And then you get there and you're like, well, this, this sucks. And you just spent 12 years of your
[00:21:42] Liquidiot: Yes,
[00:21:43] Droste: about it.
[00:21:44] Liquidiot: I was, I was good at math and I was good at, and I liked computers, so they're like, you should be an electrical engineer, or, a computer engineer. I said, that sounds good. So I went to university to be an electrical engineer. I did a year and a half of that.
[00:21:58] I was like, I don't like differential equations. I don't like Lydia or Algebra. I passed, but I don't like this. So I was, I got into fitness at the time, and that's why I switched majors and became a dietician, which is fun fact. Yeah. That's why I was on the five year program. But yeah, it's, I, I feel you, like, you just don't know.
[00:22:20] You don't ha, you haven't had those experiences. So asking you to make a decision at that point in time is just kind of ludicrous in a lot of ways, right?
[00:22:27] Droste: Yeah. Yeah. It is. Yeah. Finding your passion and then being able to make a living from it.
[00:22:34] Liquidiot: Yes. I'm still, I'm still doing that. I'm still sorting it out. Like I. What I'm doing here, and I love this space and being able to make these videos and have conversations like this with you, but I'm not done. Like, I'm still on that path trying to figure out where I wanna point this ship. I think it's like a never ending journey.
[00:22:51] And that's, that's what, that's what part of life is. It's the adventure of trying to find where your ship is sailing. Right.
[00:22:57] Some people are lucky and maybe they find that very early, but yeah, for me, I'm still, I'm still on that journey
[00:23:05] Droste: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:07] Liquidiot: and the waters have been rough recently. Let me tell you.
[00:23:10] Droste: They sure have been. I gotta say, I felt kind of stupid last year, kind of waving my arms around and saying, you know, be careful.
[00:23:20] Liquidiot: Is that how you did it? You have a sa, a sandwich board.
[00:23:25] Droste: Well, you kids,
[00:23:27] Liquidiot: You guys better be careful. There's gonna be danger! Soon, you better watch your backs! You gotta get, you're gonna be destroyed by the markets.
[00:23:35] I don't know what that was.
[00:23:35] Droste: You're doing a Conan O'Brien, right?
[00:23:37] Liquidiot: Yeah,
[00:23:38] Droste: Radio Tone News, see?
[00:23:40] Liquidiot: I Wish I, yeah, I wish I had his big, fluffy hair. Do I?
[00:23:44] Droste: oh, that pomp, he's great, but he's so funny. but no, I leveraged a number of years ago. I had, without getting into too many details,
[00:23:54] but I borrowed against a portfolio to do a real estate project and then the market imploded and I got a margin call from my broker. And they wanted a lot of money in 48 hours. And they weren't joking.
[00:24:08] They don't joke.
[00:24:09] Liquidiot: Yeah. This stuff's rough. I, I was lucky I didn't, I didn't get any leverage positions or anything like that. I just lost a bunch when everything went down because I was trying to do yield farming. So it's like some here, some there, and now it's all like, lost 99% of what it was. And I guess, all right, I guess I don't have that anymore.
[00:24:31] I didn't get in a situation where I owed anybody money. I lost a bit in the, the Terra Luna thing just because I was invested in a protocol and part of their investment was Terra. It's like a stablecoin thing they were in. So I lost like 30% of that. But all in all, I, I would say like everybody's kind of down bad from that time into now, but I, I never ended up in a position where I, I had to get liquidated or owe anybody.
[00:25:01] I still have those tokens. They're just worth next to nothing.
[00:25:03] Droste: there.
[00:25:04] Liquidiot: Yeah. Collecting
[00:25:06] Droste: bets. Others continue to ride until the shooter, the roller, rolls a seven or 11.
[00:25:13] I gu I can't remember, it's been a while since I've played it, but you can play anything on the board. But if you go all in on, on all these different bets, well, but the odds as you're
[00:25:24] gonna lose it all. So you gotta make some choices there then. Yeah, it's a fun game, but you can lose money really fast. But trying to put money on all those bets, you're not gonna win.
[00:25:34] Liquidiot: Exactly you think you can. And I thought I did at the time, but I, lesson learned, like I, I came out of it not as bad as some people. And you know, I'm not, we're not trying to make light of or, or
[00:25:45] lessen the gravity of what happened. but for me now it's just like, yeah, I'm just watching eth and Bitcoin to a lesser extent.
[00:25:52] And just keeping everything simple. I've cooled down on my NFTs quite a bit. I amassed a lot of NFTs during that time. not as much as some, but close to a hundred. I was like, how did I end up with all this stuff? most of them, like people said, I've gone to zero. A lot of 'em I bought because I enjoyed the way that they looked,even though they were kind of like profile picture type stuff. I don't regret any of that. It was a learning experience. a lot of the NFTs I still value very much just personally, but I've kind of cooled my jets on again. Same with DAO stuff, trying to be everywhere all the time. Cuz you hear about so much cool stuff.
[00:26:31] You're like, oh, I'm gonna go over there and see what that's all about. Oh, I'm gonna try to transfer something from this other thing just so I can put more into this thing. And it just becomes..
[00:26:40] Droste: Well, and then you don't even know where it is.
[00:26:41] Liquidiot: Like a personal house of cards, ba for me, basically. So.
[00:26:45] Droste: Well, you talked about simplifying, you know, we were talking about before we got started here, we were talking about simplifying our AV setup because everything get complicated and you change one thing and suddenly it's not working the way it should based on what you thought the settings were.
[00:27:00] And now you've got an event you're doing and it's not working right.
[00:27:05] it's like with anything else. And I'm finding too, with some of the, uh, the crypto stuff, it's in different wallets and different places and I don't know
[00:27:13] my cost basis and I don't
[00:27:14] Liquidiot: You're right. Like, oh, I forgot I had funds over here in this
[00:27:20] What was I doing?
[00:27:20] Droste: I had simplified things and
[00:27:22] now it's gotten complicated again.
[00:27:24] Anyway.
[00:27:25] Liquidiot: That would, that would, kind of be my, one of my biggest pieces of advice is try to, only as much as needed, find out what's enough, simplify, use what you got, and then work up from there slowly. And that's just like kind of a general thing, like with the DAO, simplify what it is you're on.
[00:27:43] Cause you can't, you can't focus, you can't produce good work if you're everywhere trying to be everywhere all the time. You, there's, there's like no such thing as multitasking. You're just switching from thing to thing.
[00:27:54] Droste: Context switching and you
[00:27:56] Liquidiot: yeah,
[00:27:57] Droste: every time you do that.
[00:27:58] Liquidiot: try to simplify your investments, your involvement. try to simplify, the amount of things you're doing with the DAO.
[00:28:05] Try to simplify your setup. The, the end goal is just to make your day-to-day smoother, less to worry about, less distress, about more time to focus on doing the actual work. Rather than spending all of your time doing admin on your life,
[00:28:23] Droste: Right.
[00:28:24] Liquidiot: different places. Right.
[00:28:25] Droste: Yeah, I meant on your life. Yes.
[00:28:27] Liquidiot: And feel free to ignore everything I just said.
[00:28:29] If you're listening, you're like, oh no, that's not gonna, you're, that doesn't work for me. I to each their own, this is
[00:28:34] Droste: Well, that kind of brings us back and think about why you're here and it's easy to get distracted and then you watch things. We watch that rollercoaster too wee, and then it comes back down the other end and a year later. I mean, it's literally, if you look at a year and you see that chart, it's like, what did I do this year?
[00:28:56] And so
[00:28:57] if
[00:28:58] Liquidiot: chart of my
[00:28:58] Droste: based on that chart,
[00:29:01] you really don't have a whole lot to save for it. But if we're to doing, the chart is incidental and. Building, you know, we talk about building or you're doing what you love. So we talked before about when you first got into voice acting and you were in that, that sound treated room and it took you to another world.
[00:29:23] And now you're doing that in this space. It's bringing you back to your passion. And it almost took, I'm not saying it took getting wrecked, but it takes exploring some different things and meeting new people, quite frankly. And vibing with, like Zim says, Anthony Zim, Timmo
[00:29:42] we're bands, man, you gotta find your band.
[00:29:46] Liquidiot: Yeah. There's gotta be a certain amount of pain along the way. I, people don't want to hear that. But without pain, you can't have growth. And that's kind of what a lot of us have experienced in different, I guess different ways, different aspects of that are, it's been a, we can cut this part out cause I'm trying to get my words.
[00:30:04] The manifestation of that pain is different for everyone, but you kind of have to have that, solve those problems for yourself, your life, work through that pain for yourself. and this was kind of all part of it, I guess.
[00:30:16] Droste: Well, it's like we've talked about before, if you're trying out photography or whatever it is, you know, you, maybe photography's not a good example, but you go through a four year college program and never really have an internship or have a chance to shadow somebody that works in that field. and then you get there and, oh, I don't really like this.
[00:30:37] And, you know, you spend all that time, all that money. and sometimes you don't know what you care about. You think you care about these other things and it takes a cycle or maybe two cycles to come back and go, yeah, no, I thought that was what I cared about, but I don't.
[00:30:56] Liquidiot: Right. Well, very high level this space, crypto. All this for me is, this is gonna sound a little lame, but it's about, um, freedom. I said the F word. Yes. Freedom. I think David Hoffman, I think I've heard him say this quote, it's, crypto's not here to make you rich. It's here to set you free. And that's kind of what I'm looking for.
[00:31:18] I am wanting to have more freedom in my life. That is to be able to pursue things I enjoy, provide value, be compensated for that, but not worry about it and not have to deal with, the existing financial systems and having third parties and everybody with their finger in the pie. And that's kind of where the freedom comes with me.
[00:31:39] Self sovereignty over my own financial destiny, taking my money with me, and pursuing the things that I. And then just not having to worry about it as much of the other stuff. I don't know if that kind of makes sense,
[00:31:51] but
[00:31:51] that's, that's kind of like what it comes down to me for
[00:31:54] Droste: it makes total sense and it's probably why you and I get along so well. it's a little bit of a secret. We don't care about the money that much. it's a tool. It's to live and, and you want to be able to do what you enjoy and not worry about.
[00:32:10] Liquidiot: It's, for me, it's stress relief. Money is relief of stress, and then it allows me to buy time. We go back to time. Money allows me to buy, time to spend with the people I love and doing the things I love. And that's kind of what it comes down to. And I see crypto as a means to that end, like a way I can accomplish that goal for myself.
[00:32:32] I've told this to people. Nobody believes me. Like I could be airdropped a hundred million tomorrow and I would still live a hundred thousand dollars lifestyle because after a certain point, I don't care. Cause it just doesn't, it doesn't interest me and it does other people and that's fine, but that's not what I'm pursuing.
[00:32:50] so yeah, it's, it, it, it all goes back to that idea of, of time and how you wanna spend it and who you wanna spend it with and how you wanna manage your life and your finances. Cuz it is important. But again, I see this as a way to help me do that and to be able to be mobile and have, again, control over my own, financial future in a way.
[00:33:11] Right.
[00:33:12] Droste: yeah. Some of these events as unpleasant as, as unpleasant as they are, bring clarity,
[00:33:20] Liquidiot: right.
[00:33:21] Droste: they can bring clarity if it doesn't destroy you. Um, I know that sounds kind of ominous.
[00:33:26] Liquidiot: Goes back to that, that pain I was talking about. Yeah. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It really does.
[00:33:31] Droste: but you know, we've all been through a lot these past few years and
[00:33:35] Liquidiot: What did you learn is the question you gotta ask yourself. When something goes bad, what can I take from this and how can I use that in the future to either A, make that not happen again, or have that situation be favorable for me in some way, you know?
[00:33:50] Droste: Yeah. So back to what you're working on and you know, it's funny cuz you and I worked together a lot in AV Guild before and worked a bit on hatchery, podcast hatchery stuff and things like that and I had no idea how involved you were with The Rug. I mean, you were like core there. You produce Under the Rug.
[00:34:10] Definitely. and I know that's one of your main projects, but is, I know that's not all,
[00:34:16] Liquidiot: Yes.
[00:34:16] Droste: of the core things, maybe wanna
[00:34:19] Liquidiot: Yeah, so that goes back to, it goes back to the, the, the f the focus that I was saying, hone in on projects and, and ideas and groups of people that, that you love working with. And the rug is definitely one of that. I got into that by chance when it was still called Top Signal Satire site. I don't know if anybody remembers that.
[00:34:35] Droste: Oh yeah, Top Signal.
[00:34:36] Liquidiot: There was a, there was a channel in the DAO, in the Bankless DAO server that was for that. And I had a couple of joke ideas just with stuff that was happening. He's like, I'll just pop in here and say a couple things. and I made a couple jokes and then there's a, there's only like a handful of people at that time like, oh, you should join.
[00:34:53] and that's when we kind of started The Rug. And then we had maybe 12, 13, 14 people and we produced that first N F T, which wasamazing. I loved what we did.
[00:35:02] We turned it in.
[00:35:03] Droste: MW was involved, right?
[00:35:05] Liquidiot: Yeah. Yeah. He was one of the head people originally.
[00:35:08] So he was kind of core to starting that up. It was him and Frank America and Perchy and a handful of other people at the beginning. so yeah, we produced that N F T It was fantastic. I liked the newspaper style of it, and then we did a series of that and along the line we're like, we're getting, we're kind of wanting to move this into a more serious direction. So then we kind of started our server, and, and I was involved in setting that up.
[00:35:33] So, yeah, I, I guess I'm one of the core members. There's a couple of us that kind of keep the wheels turning over there on the daily,
[00:35:40] Droste: Now I'd like to just clarify. When you say serious, you don't mean being serious, you mean operating seriously with a Discord server
[00:35:52] Liquidiot: Yeah.
[00:35:52] yeah. yeah. yeah. That's what I'm, Yeah.
[00:35:54] Yeah. We, we needed more. Yeah. One channel wasn't enough for all of the laughs that we had, so we had to, we had to bust out into our own server just so we had a little more space to. It's been going great over there. We're producing a lot more now. You mentioned Under The Rug, which is a podcast we do, monthly, which is kind of behind the scenes about our writing and our jokes and that kind of stuff.
[00:36:15] So we have a, a small stable of writers and designers and a couple hype people and we mainly operate out of Twitter. We meant articles on mirror, on optimism for about the price of a cup of coffee. We do our newsletter. we're starting up NFTs again. so we're putting out a lot of content there.
[00:36:35] And I love comedy.
[00:36:37] Like I mentioned earlier, I was kind of the class clown. I'm a smart ass. Ask my wife, I'm sarcastic, which is to my detriment most of the time.
[00:36:45] I was in the principal's office quite often,
[00:36:47] let's just say that. Um, so it really clicked like, like the voiceover? And, and the comedy thing. So that's kind of where I put my focus. And, and the rug is probably one of the most fun things I do in this space. Cuz a lot of the things that happen are just completely absurd.
[00:37:03] And you know, we're there to be able to, to kind of, you have to be able to laugh. It's
[00:37:09] medicine. Yeah. You have to be able to laugh at yourself and how ridiculous stuff is and what you're doing. Cuz you know, it's, it's much needed. And I hope everybody enjoys what we're doing over there and we're not trying to laugh at people.
[00:37:23] We're trying to laugh with people cuz there's, there's just so much funny in the world and particularly in this space and since it's such a, a nascent or like young thing, uh, it's growing up and we're kind of growing up with it and there's a lot of of comedy to be had within that.
[00:37:40] It's a lot of fun.
[00:37:41] Droste: Some of these jokes write themselves. Are you kidding? Jeez.
[00:37:44] Liquidiot: Yeah. We don't even have to do anything. We just have to put up a picture on it. It's already there.
[00:37:50] Droste: one of the first things that popped into my head with S B F when the whole thing blew up was, God, this guy's going to prison. And you know that bank man's gonna be fried. I
[00:38:02] Liquidiot: Yeah.
[00:38:02] Droste: just writes itself.
[00:38:04] Liquidiot: Yeah, yeah. We had a couple good jokes about he had his get outta jail free card from his Monopoly set, which is pretty funny. he got arrested because he forgot his bribe payments. He, he missed a deadline on bribes, so they brought him in for that. yeah, just with, with him the culmination of this with what happened previously with Three Arrows Capital and, The Terra thing.
[00:38:25] It's just like, man, this is just compounding comedy gains, I guess. This is, it's almost getting like, okay, we need to have something else to make fun of.
[00:38:34] Droste: I know, I know,
[00:38:35] Liquidiot: one thing.
[00:38:36] Droste: because it's already got bad press.
[00:38:39] Liquidiot: Yeah. All in our writer's room, we're like, oh, okay. Are we gonna stop writing about SBF? I'm getting tired of it.
[00:38:44] It's like, well, it's, is hilarious and absurd stuff going to stop happening anytime soon? Because if not, we're just gonna keep, keep writing about it, you know?
[00:38:52] Droste: Yeah. I mean, if it bleeds, it leads.
[00:38:55] Liquidiot: Yeah. it's, uh, funny, it's money I guess.
[00:38:59] I think that's
[00:39:00] what, I think that's what Frank, I stole that from him,
[00:39:03] but you gotta follow the narrative and if that's where the narrative's at, we gotta be there to capitalize on the comedy, you know?
[00:39:10] Droste: Yeah, yeah. Comedy is not easy and it's not pretty.
[00:39:13] Liquidiot: Yes. It is not, it is not. But it, I enjoy it.
[00:39:17] I've fallen on my face several times, but
[00:39:19] Droste: yeah.
[00:39:19] Yeah.
[00:39:19] Yeah. So right now, I don't know how long this goes on, you've got a free mint,
[00:39:25] Liquidiot: Yes. Actually it's over.
[00:39:27] Droste: Oh
[00:39:29] Liquidiot: we recorded our podcast yesterday, and I mentioned it in housekeeping, but I realized that by the time the episode is released, the mint is going to be closed.
[00:39:36] Droste: well we will not include that.
[00:39:38] Liquidiot: now
[00:39:39] Droste: Jane. Jane,
[00:39:41] Liquidiot: time out.
[00:39:42] Droste: a
[00:39:42] Liquidiot: Timestamp. What is it? Write it down.
[00:39:47] Droste: we'll do another session for pickup and stuff but I think this is pretty good. We may actually have an episode here.
[00:39:51] I just haven't written my intro and stuff.
[00:39:53] Liquidiot: I thought this was just a test.
[00:39:55] Droste: It is a test. It was a test.
[00:39:57] Liquidiot: I have to do, have to go to the mountains in Chiga for an English camp. Um,
[00:40:02] Droste: Mountains in Chiga.
[00:40:03] Liquidiot: mountains in chia. That is next week on the 28th, 29th and 30th. Um, but after New Year's, oh, I'm pretty open as well. I could do, I could do Monday or Tuesday next week.
[00:40:19] That's right around Christmas, so it should be fine.