STIMY Ep 86.2: Zeneca 33

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Zeneca: My biggest thing in this space is betting on people.

I like, I will bet on people more than anything else. If I'm looking at a project, whether it's evaluated, I look at the people, the team. That's true for Artblocks. I think snow fro and the team he's put together is absolutely phenomenal.

And then I think what apes have done executed really well on a lot of instances, especially innovative stuff where they were really leading the space in many, many respects where others weren't.

Kevin was putting his name to he's putting all this time and effort into it.

And I just could not imagine a world where this would not succeed or do very, very well. Again, short of a black Swan event. So all of that led up to me just being extraordinarily bullish on it prior to mint. And then did buy several on secondary the day of mint obviously a hindsight 20, 20. I wish I bought more, but I'm very privileged and happy to have those that I do have.

Ling Yah: Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 86 part two of the so this my why podcast. I'm your host and producer, Ling Yah, and we are going back to part two of our conversation with Zeneca 33 - NFT thought leader with nearly 300,000 followers on Twitter, the founder of the NFT project, Zen academy, as well as the host of two podcasts, newsletter and YouTube channel on all things NFT.

In this second part, we talked about firstly, how he x100 his net worth in one year through just NFT investments, how to support females in the space, how he builds virtual communities that tension between fencing up valuable knowledge behind the pay wall, AKA NFTs versus making all information free for everyone as by this mission to educate the general public.

His thoughts on the current bear market, whether he's actually happy given though his influence and money and the kind of legacy he wants to leave behind.

And if you haven't already done so to listen to part one, cuz we touched on things like how he leveraged his 10 years of being a professional poker player to invest in the NFT space and how he sees money.

How he uses FOMO to invest in NFT projects while at the same time also experience the infinite regret because of FOMO.

What it's really like being part of the Bored Apes community and other things like are Bored Apes overvalued? What would it take for the board apes valuation to crash.

Do stick around. I'd love to know your thoughts on this episode. So do leave a rating review on this podcast on whatever podcast platform you're listening to. The link is in the podcast episode description.

Every review helps more people discover this show.

Now are you ready?

Let's go.

I saw one Tweet where you said that you managed to 100 X your net worth in one year. Is there a secret to you doing that. I'm sure everyone wants to do it.

Zeneca: I'm sure they do. Uh, Luck is the crux of it. I mean, I think that there's no way anyone can do that without luck. I'd say it's come down a bit, at a certain point it would have been a hundred X, but then obviously we're in a bad market right now and have been through a few cycles.

So it's probably not quite at that level anymore, but luck is by and large, the most important factor to it being in the right place at the right time being fortunate enough to meet the right things. But then I think conviction is another big part of it. So you can mint the right things, but then having the conviction to hold like hundred X-ing a portfolio, or like a asset.

It's so difficult because it means that when you've 10 X, you decide enough to sell when you 35 X, you decide not to sell and takes almost a special kind of crazy to do that.

Especially with something. So nascent as NFTs, where the valuations is very difficult to understand and very speculative in nature.

Ling Yah: It makes me think of Moonbirds, as you were talking, how people were saying, should I hold should I hold should I hold?

Zeneca: Yeah, I mean Moonbirds.

I had never been more bullish on a project prior to mint than then members.

The conviction. Yeah. That, to me is the most important part. And it's really difficult to have because by nature of the spaces, so speculative and, high-risk and uncertain. But if you can find a way to have really strong conviction in a project or a sector or an industry or a movement or anything invest into it early and be a part of it and then hold on and just feel confident and not go crazy.

If things come crashing down able to take that sort of risk that gamble, then I think that's, really, really powerful. And then just finding during research and understanding what people might want in the future and, having a conviction that allows you to hold. I contribute most of the success to Artblocks.

I think that's where I had that conviction fairly early and just started collecting and buying lots and lots and lots. And as a platform and emotionally out there went up tremendously. and then down a lot, I think it's come down 50 to 90% across the board in many collections. But I haven't panicked once I've, been continuing to buy because I still have that conviction in the long-term prospects of it.

So, yeah, I would say luck and conviction are the two key points.

Ling Yah: What about the vision in Moonbirds? You said earlier, I thought it was very interesting. I've never been more convicted.

And I noticed you actually interviewed Kevin Rose before they're launched moon, but so what was it that allow you to be so certain that this would do well?

Zeneca: So it goes back to the proof collective, the proof pass that Kevin released which one of my largest regrets in the space is not minting or buying an early and having a bunch of those. But that's another story it's infinite regret in this space. However the proof pass is a thousand NFT collection for a private discord that he put together a, for serious collectors in space.

And it basically was a Dutch auction starting at five eighth, admitted out at between one and two eighth and sort of hovered around that price for awhile. And then a few months later, it was sitting at 40, 50, 60, 70 eighth around that point, proud of investment. And so clearly already Kevin and his team had been able to create something of significant value that people valued and execute really well.

And they had done a few things that executed really well on one was the grails project where they sort of gathered together some really, excellent five-star STR artists in space and put together a really innovative, a mint for their holders. Provided a ton of value to them and seeing how that they could execute on that.

And also knowing Kevin and his history and background, and working in tech companies and hearing him speak on his podcasts, modern finance, and then proof. I just had a really high level of conviction that moon birds was going to be just an really well executed project that a lot of people would want to be a part of.

And so this was prior to really interviewing and chatting with him personally, but it was from listening to him, be on other interviews and talk about the product and his vision and how he saw things playing out.

My biggest thing in this space is betting on people.

I like, I will bet on people more than anything else. If I'm looking at a project, whether it's evaluated, I look at the people, the team. That's true for Artblocks. I think snow fro and the team he's put together is absolutely phenomenal.

And then I think what apes have done executed really well on a lot of instances, especially innovative stuff where they were really leading the space in many, many respects where others weren't.

Kevin was putting his name to he's putting all this time and effort into it.

And I just could not imagine a world where this would not succeed or do very, very well. Again, short of a black Swan event. So all of that led up to me just being extraordinarily bullish on it prior to mint. And then did buy several on secondary the day of mint obviously a hindsight 20, 20. I wish I bought more, but I'm very privileged and happy to have those that I do have.

Ling Yah: I wonder with Kevin, as you mentioned, he was in tech. He was doing Digg and this is the thing that I found when I was speaking to friends and you mentioned as well, people in this space, they love the underdog and they want to go against the establishment. Kevin couldn't be more establishment.

He's very much deep in the Silicon valley space. And you could work as hard as you want, that doesn't mean your project will succeed. And I would've imagined because he was from the establishment, maybe with VC money behind it, that people might be wary. Was that something that was a concern? How do you think about?

Zeneca: I would say it was certainly a concern for some people and it's a narrative that is running through the space. But I would say and again, this is a larger discussion, but it's sort of for better or worse, that ethos was a lot stronger a couple of years ago, by the people who found crypto early, who believed in the fundamentals of it.

And, passionate about decentralization and being the underdog and battling against a centralized entities, large centralized entities and VCs.

As time has gone on and as more and more people are entering the space and the level of technological savviness or desire for independence goes down.

I think basically, it's more retail investors joining the space. I think that narrative is shifting and more and more people are sort of quote unquote being okay with. VC's funding projects. And by the time Moonbirds came to launch, it had basically become defacto normal.

Like everyone sort of knew that VCs were again for better or worse involved in many respects. Yuga had raised a bunch of money. and so many of the protocols in the space are VC backed. OpenSea And a bunch of others as well. Of course. And so it's almost like while yes, some people are not thrilled with the prospect of that.

There are clear benefits as well. If you have a lot of funding to begin with, you can execute more quickly. If you have that experience, you know, what it is to hire and build out a team and to Just do things at a scale and speed that a lot of projects had not up until this point.

I think that, not all VCs are created equal as well. I think that's the other thing is it really depends on who it is that that's backing the project, what their incentives and goals are and timelines and timeframes. Are they trying to extract and get a return on their money ASAP? Or are they really very much long-term minded and hearing Kevin talk about.

True ventures, his VC found that he's very heavily involved in. I know that he has spoken about how their approach is very much long-term minded. If they invest in a platform and protocol, I think they invested in sushi. And I remember hearing him talk about it. He was like, we're okay with extremely long investing periods and things like that because we believe in the protocol for 5, 10, 20 years, we want to help it grow and succeed and be yourself sitting insti and provide guidance and support.

And that's the other thing VCs can do. There's a network and they can help stuff like that. So I'm not the biggest fan of VCs, but I think that they can provide value in certain instances in the right way. Hopefully in decades we're done with them and until decentralized and we have decentralized VCs.

until then, yeah,

Ling Yah: I want to talk a bit about women founders in the NFT space. I've interviewed quite a few of them. And one of the common woes that they tend to say is that women led projects tend to not take off. You look at Apes, it's gone up to 95. You don't see World of Women anywhere near that at all.

And I wonder why you think that's the case? Why is it that women led projects haven't taken off?

Zeneca: I think there's an important distinction to be made between women led and ones where the NFTs themselves are women-focused, centric because the CEO of Yuga, Nicole Muniz is a woman she's leading Yuga labs.

She's leading Bored Apes. She has been for a long time. So the most successful project is women that is led by a woman. So I think a lot of people just forget that fact to ignore it or whatever, because the Bored Apes themselves don't have maybe a lot of traditionally female centric traits, or maybe she is not publicly out there advocating for the project as a woman, the project or anything like that.

I think that there is a distinction between that and then projects like world of women where the NFTs themselves are women, and there's a focus on it being a woman led project or a project for women. I do agree that they just haven't quite found that level of success as say the Bored Apes or doodles or Moonbirds now.

I mean, obviously it's a very complicated area and there's a lot of factors playing into it. I think one would be that Up until now the crypto space as a whole and energy space catered towards men more than women. I mean, certainly even now. and a lot of the participants who are buying and investing are still men.

I haven't checked recent numbers, but I think certainly up until say a year ago, six months ago there were more men in the space and I guess men are just traditionally more likely to buy an NFT that appeals to them or like the represents them more than anything else. So that might be one reason why they haven't taken off as much.

Another one I was talking to someone about this yesterday actually, is that because there's now this label of women led project and they're sort of identified as that.

It's almost as if they're competing, it's the other women led projects to people like, oh, which women led project is going to succeed is going to be world of women.

It's going to be boss beauties. Is it going to be women and weapons and, and women rise or whatever it might be. The focus is on that rather than the rest of the merits of the projects. and again, it's sort of like the competing against one another in that respect, which yeah, I dunno.

I mean, competition is good in many respects, but maybe the market doesn't have enough. Participants that want to invest in women led projects yet, and that's obviously an issue, but I do think things are getting more progressive as time goes on and inclusive. And certainly now, compared to when I first got in that there's a lot more thought and mindfulness going into when it comes sort of what types of traits do you want for the project and, and what sort of like, what would appeal to not just white men in the thirties, but you know, all sorts of different backgrounds and, so I think we're moving in the right direction, but we're not in a fantastic place.

That's for sure.

Ling Yah: One of the questions I get a lot asked a lot by my crypto friends who are male, is how can men help females in the NFT space? I wonder if you have any thoughts on that.

Zeneca: I think just generally being supportive and maybe going a little bit more out of your way to lift up and elevate women that are trying to create in this space or be in this space and provide value.

Especially if for whatever reason like market isn't viewing a project or there's not much of a spotlight on it. Maybe because there aren't. I think that just generally as being supportive and spreading education is another big thing. it's a tough question to answer for sure.

I mean also just like voting with your wallet as well. Like that's one of the biggest things.

Ling Yah: I think that's one of the common ways they would just say I will buy an NFT from their project, even though I don't expect it to ever go anywhere, but I'm buying it just to support the females.

But at the same time they would then say, but I don't know if I should have done that because if I buy into a project that I know is going to fail, then isn't it better for me to let it fail rather than giving that small hope.

Zeneca: Yeah. It's a really good question.

And I think about it often for all sorts of projects, not just specific to women led projects, there's unfortunately a lot of projects and founders I speak to and that I want to support their projects but it really seems unlikely to me that they're going to succeed. I think at the end of the day, there's so many unknowns and uncertainties in the space that you never know what's going to succeed and what's not.

whether it's the straw that breaks the camel's back or some minor little thing that is butterfly effect, where just because you minting might be what makes someone else meant to and will make someone else, man. And they see that and would say if you want to support a project, a founder creators because you like them as people, you like their work, even if you think it's going to be a financial success, I think that's still something we should all do.

But I'd say even more importantly, the best thing you can do for basically anyone, if you want to support them is help spread awareness for their project and tell people, because at the end of the day, it's not that difficult to create an NFT project. it's getting easier as well with the tooling that we have.

The difficult part is getting other people interested in that project because there's so much competition. And we live in an attention economy and attention is stretched so thin in so many directions. If you can write a Twitter thread or create a YouTube video, or just tell a friend about a project that you think is really cool and just spread awareness that I'm pretty sure is what any founder would say.

They appreciate that support way more than, one mint at 0.08 or something like that.

Ling Yah: So just before he go to the whole attention creator economy aspect, I have noticed that there are a lot of quote unquote women in web three kind of events. I've not seen a "male" in web three kind of event.

And I wonder if this sort of gender specific event is actually helpful or is it more divisive.

Zeneca: Yeah. You're right. I haven't seen any men in web three events. And whether it's helpful or divisive I don't know the answer. I think that maybe we will never know. It's one of those things where we'd have to look at an alternative reality where we see both play out and see what the results were.

I think to me personally, it feels like a net positive. I think it might provide a space for women to feel more comfortable talking about web three and NFTs or certain women who would be more comfortable talking in that space. not all of course. And this is true of any group.

It can be really difficult to sort of jump into the conversation and be part of it and feel part of the community. And if there's anything that would make you feel more comfortable, whether it's being part of a smaller group of like-minded people or a small group of people that you feel more comfortable with like let's say your A little bit older in your fifties, sixties, seventies.

You can't keep up with Twitter and you can honky about with discord and then you know, maybe there should be a Facebook group for people wanting to learn and chat with each other about it in a more calm, relaxed environment.

Maybe it's about getting together at a cafe to meet up and talk about NFTs. I don't really see it as divisive. I think it's additive rather than anything. It increases options.

So for certain people, it will be helpful. As long as the narrative doesn't denigrate into an us versus them or we're going to support them, but not this one. As long as it's additive and supportive and helpful and done with positivity, I think it's certainly good things. Yeah.

Ling Yah: I completely agree. And I often think that it never hurts to have more events and more opportunities for people to come in, because as we discussed way earlier, it's so difficult to get in. There are so many terms and it just doesn't make sense. Just buying and transferring and you can have many wallets.

How do you create all those? It's very confusing. And it brings to mind a conversation. I had recently with another guest called Eric Toda. He's the global head of social marketing and Meta. And I asked him what his thoughts were on web three. And he basically said the big issue is just access. It's just not accessible at all for the majority of people.

We often forget, most people don't even own a phone. I wonder if you have any thoughts on just how do you make it more accessible?

Zeneca: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think that is obviously a bigger problem and issues. It's more like access to the internet. So it's just not web three specific, even for those who do have access to a phone. Most people access the internet via phone or mobile device and not a laptop.

And so many apps and websites are native to like a desktop experience or computer browser experience and not mobile friendly. So I think ensuring that we build tooling and infrastructure that is mobile friendly going forward is super important.

To me, obviously the logistics and the physical accessibility is probably the biggest hurdle for getting the entire world into web three. That's a much larger problem to tackle. I think that web three will help that because it will free up capital. I think in certain areas that can be directed in like a world wide scale and allocate it towards helping those less privileged and educating them.

I think education is probably the most important part about onboarding newcomers to the space. And well, I can maybe two things. One is education and the other is infrastructure. And in terms of like currently it's, very difficult for someone to get into like into NFTs and crypto and understanding how the blockchain works, how a wallet works, custody, seed phrases gas It's just so foreign and difficult to understand. So I think figuring out ways to make that experience easier, as well as figuring out ways to make whatever that experience is easy to understand. And I think those are the key things that are really gonna propel web three mainstream in the next several years.

Ling Yah: So you are known as an NFT thought leader and you must be one of the most prolific career content creators in the space. You have a newsletter, you have two podcasts, you have a YouTube, you have your own NFT Project, Zenacademy.

Me running just one podcast, it's so overwhelming. And I can't imagine you doing all of that. So I wonder I believe you first got into this content creation NFT space with a newsletter? How did that all start?

Zeneca: Yeah, it is overwhelming. Let me just say that as well for me as well.

So I started with the newsletters where I began in I believe it was June 20, 21 during last year.

And the reason, I've always enjoyed writing. Always. I used to have a poker blog when I was back as a poker player. And then over the years I had ideas to create like a food blog. So like, food and travel and just none of that ever really took off because it wasn't quite the right fit.

But I've always had that, like proclivity towards writing and reading. I've identified that. I learned best when I write, if I have to explain a topic to someone, perhaps to explain a project, then obviously you need to research it. You want to make a hundred percent sure that you're getting accurate information across.

And so taking that time to understand it and to be able to explain it and write it is what helps me learn. So I thought, let me start a newsletter to just start writing about whatever topic or project. And I'll learn a lot in the process I never really had massive ambitions or goals or thoughts that it would really take off.

But I just thought, let me just stop get it out there. And that's what I started with. And it was it started off going pretty well. Like I think from the first couple of letters uh,

it already starting to propagate and get a reasonable amount of readers and circulation because people were sharing it.

And part of that surely was just basically, there was very little NFT content when I was writing back then. and the space was fairly small, so people would just share it around and that really helped. sometime after that, maybe within a month, actually my friend Jamie mentioned before, so we both got into.

We both bought, bought apes in may and was kind of thinking like, well, we have these commercial rights, what can we do? What should we do? And we had both always kind of wanted to create a podcast at some point. And again never was a great topic. And we didn't know, like maybe he wants to do it by himself and go and do them.

But then when this came up, we thought, well, maybe we created a podcast about the board of your club. Well, with our board April, like doing something in that vein. so we spit balled and, came up with so when we first had the idea, we didn't quite realize how much work went into it or anything like that.

it was still a case of, we wanted to strike while the iron was hot. So we thought, well, everyone's talking about Apes right now. We should just get our podcasts out. And so I think it was the Thursday and we started chatting like, well, when do we want to release? We're like, Monday, should we just get first episode?

But I think it was about six weeks later that the first episode actually went out and about eight different tests, failed recordings and issues. And yeah, we had to find a sound engineer and we had to get a logo and music and then figure out just an equipment. And I figured out how to actually speak on a podcast.

But yeah, that's what came next. And that was honestly, the most fun content I create because we're true friends. And we're just talking to NFTs and talking about what's done on the space and yeah. that's how it all began. And then it just sort of exploded and kept evolving from.

Ling Yah: For someone who's listening to this interview and they really love what you are doing and they want to they hear more about, oh, you other thoughts on all, your other different platforms, how do they begin? How do they decide which to start with? Cause there's a lot out there.

Zeneca: Yeah. That's a really good question.

And this is sort of highlighting a floor in sort of my whole ecosystem where I don't have a great starting off point. I sort of always direct people to my Twitter because I think that's sort of like, it's got my stream of consciousness and day-to-day thoughts. Plus you can find links to my, all the content and material on my link tree.

my Twitter and Zen academy as well, where I spent a good amount of my time and have people join, but for my content specifically yeah, I would say Twitter is sort of where I've set up home base. And then from there you can sort of figure out What content appeals to you? Cause something that sort of didn't Dawn on me till way too late.

So I was focusing so much on my newsletter which I love and I still love and hope to get back to writing more of, but it's basically the 70 to 80% of people don't read long form written content. These days they will not read an article that takes them 45 minutes to read. People want YouTube videos.

They want podcasts, they want 60 second YouTube shorts TikTok, Instagram, et cetera. So figuring out like how to reach a wider audience and share the same type of content, but just in different formats is something I've spent the last several months working on. that's why depending on what you, like, I would say, what I'm most proud of is my newsletter.

It's just holds a special space in my heart. I put a lot of thought into my, my letters and so I would say that if you have the time, I would recommend going there and reading some of the old lettuce, some of them are, some of them are a bit dated and irrelevant to things happening at the time, but there's certainly certain ones that I think are relatively timeless and talk about more macro or big picture of things.

Ling Yah: Hey, there dropping in to say, if you've been enjoying this conversation so far, would you consider buying STIMY a coffee, You can find the link in the description of this podcast episode.

Every little coffee that you buy does help this podcast to grow, and it will be much appreciated.

I felt like your newsletter was a way for me to understand what you cared about most. For instance, you talked about generative art a lot. So I knew that that was something you loved. Yeah. You talked about creative commons a lot. So I knew that was something that you always cared.

You cared about a lot. You mentioned this thing called ZenAcademy. What is it? How that begin?

Zeneca: Yes. So for those watching the video right behind me, I've got my virtual background is the Zen academy themed. The idea for this, I want to say during as well last year, but surely it couldn't, it couldn't have all happened at once.

So let's say July last year, period from five, it was, time is so weird in this space, but let's say July last year I had the idea, basically I had been spending so much time flipping NFTs trading aggressively outside in the field, a little burnt out. it was difficult to stay on top of my portfolio having to sell things all the time, if you're going to what to sell.

And just getting a little less fun. It was still obviously very enjoyable but difficult to maintain. But I'll say even more than that, I felt that I wasn't contributing to the space. So added to the space by flipping It's not a really rewarding thing to do aside from the financial upside.

And that's something that I kind of Struggled with, as a poker of life, 15 years, they never quite reconciled. The world is not the professional poker players. there's no real value being added to the world. We're not, we're not really helping we take money from those who are usually less fortunate financially or intellectually or psychologically or whatever it might be.

And the dream case scenario is okay, you're providing an avenue for wealthy businessmen who want to recreationally play poker to play and, blow off some steam. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are people who have gambling issues and addictions are just losing paychecks, playing poker, and it's never felt good.

But I had no other skills and I just struggled with it. I never really reconciled, and I did all the things in poker to try and add, but anyway, 15 years of that, and I didn't love the idea of doing more of that sort of like flipping extractive type thing in whatever space it was.

But then I had started creating content, my newsletter and the podcasts were starting to be popular and people were like, really appreciating it. They were enjoying it. They were feeling value from it. And that made me feel really, really good. That made me feel a lot better than basically anything else was like, oh, I'm.

Putting something out there that's adding value or providing help to people in the space in the world. I thought I want to lean more into that and do more into that. And so naturally I thought about my own NFT project, because I think that, in the web three space, you think about whether it's monetized content or make a full-time career out of it.

And in the web to space, you could create like a Patreon. You could have a paid email subscription, and also stuff like that ads on YouTube, et cetera. I wanted to do something web three native. And so that's where I had the idea to create Zen academy. And the first iteration in my mind was it was going to be sort of like this one-stop shop where anyone new to NFTs could come and learn everything that needs to know, to understand the chase.

And the reason was basically all of us then, and even now we'll have a friend or we have family members who come to us and they know that we are into entities and they say, Hey, you're into NFTs. Can you sort of help me? How do I get started? And there's no good answer. There's a lot better answers now, but especially back then, it was like, all right. Here, watch these YouTube videos, read these articles, follow these people on Twitter, join these discords and then ask me questions. And then the first question is what is discord? it's just really, really a steep learning curve and you have to hold their, so I was like, what if I could just make this website is platform where everyone says, I go to Zen academy, history of NFTs you can read, has a Metamask, what to look for?

But then I realized how monumental of a task that really is too, because of how much there is to learn and how just diverse and expansive NFTs are let alone all of crypto and web three. And you'd have to explain how a blockchain works and all that kind of stuff. Not to mention, trying to keep information current.

And up-to-date because of how fast things move. So then I sort of got overwhelmed and I said, well, actually, maybe I don't want to do this. It's going to enormous. It's going to require so many more. People's going to grant funding and it just started to make me a little stressed.

So I basically just to put a pin in it but I had already created a discord server. I said, you know, it would be cool to have my own community. I was in all these other communities, but it would be nice to have my own community to talk about what I'm up to and connect with people in that way.

So for, I think a couple of months, that was kind of the end of it. I had in my mindset. All right. I thought about Zen academy and decided not to do it and let's move on and I'll just keep doing some flipping and focus more on my content just on a personal level and just leave it at that.

But then in October I had been planning to go to the U S for NFT NYC eight fast, and there was an art blocks event in Mafa, but due to COVID travel restrictions, I couldn't travel. I couldn't go. And so this all of a sudden, like this four to five week period that I had sort of been hoping to be away for in traveling freed up and had nothing, nothing in my calendar.

And so that's when I said, well, maybe now I can and couldn't should revisit Zen academy and see maybe there's a different approach to take. And that's basically what happened.

I revamped the idea and said, instead of launching a full flesh platform and academy and one-stop shop. Let me just launch as community first as this discord server gated access to scozzafava, where the token would give you access to the server, as well as what I was saying, lifetime access to Zenacademy.

At that time, Zenacademy was the discord server. It was me being in there and that was it. But I knew that I would want to build more and do more in the space. I just didn't know exactly what and the how. And again, this comes back to having no roadmap. It was like, you know, I want to be around. I want to create content.

I want to help people and spread education. And I want to make this my full-time job and not be flipping and trading and having to worry about doing that and do it in a web three native way. And there's only, there's this certain thing that you can only do if you have a community that owns your NFT.

For example gaining access to the disk code is one getting access to in real life events is another partnering with other projects where, you know, they can see what NFTs you hold. We airdrop art to holders. It's just made infinitely easier having an NFT.

So that was the Genesis story of how Zen academy came to be. So that was October. And then, yeah, it was basically six weeks of building and figuring out how to do it and structure it. And then in early November we launched as an NFT mint and I actually structured it so that there were two different tiers of membership.

One is the Genesis. Zen academy to you. And that's like your basic membership. And the other is the 3, 3, 3 club, which is a more targeted towards those who are builders or founders in this space who have their own projects and are maybe looking for more advice or consulting because I had been doing some consulting for a few months at this point.

And basically there were far more people wanting to bring me on as an advisor then I could realistically work with. So I thought maybe if I create a community where I can dedicate more time to everyone in the community or some amount of time and, people active there as well as hopefully have the community help each other, and then, you know, share that common knowledge and bounce ideas off one another.

And that's what the 3 33 club was and is. And so the two tiers of membership, the three-three three club, mid price was 3.3, three eighth. I have a thing for threes. that's just the number the was, yeah, very in my mind last year. And so that was that. And then for the Genesis membership, I went with a mid price point or three, three eighth.

So I wanted to make it fairly accessible. I toyed with the idea of free mint and, and other options, but ended up with this I'm pretty happy with it.

Ling Yah: There's only 7484 Genesis circuits. Why is that? This seems like a strange number.

Zeneca: Yeah. So the way we structured the mint was we said it's going to be an open edition.

So a two week period, anyone can come and mint, however many they want. So there's no cap, there's no hard supply. There's no rush because gas was really high at the time. So we said, we'll wait till gas is low. You have two weeks to mint. The contract was nice and optimized, so it only really costs, I think, $10 to mint, however many wanted at that time.

that's what ended up happening. We had 6,488 minted during that one week period, a two week period. And then we reserved an extra thousand for giveaways, collaborations, partnerships. I think we've given away about 150 of those just because I really liked the idea of a free mint and I didn't love the idea of having a paywall for people to want to learn and be educated, Oh, I was gonna say we have a free membership option as well, which is for the discord server.

Anyone can join and get a role that you can view all of the content. You can see the discussion, read the guides watch videos But you just can't actively participate in talking and chatting to avoid scammers spammers as well. And you can't participate in like the giveaways for prizes and mintless spots to add value to the Genesis holders.

Ling Yah: Obviously a lot of NFTs, you need to get it in order to join and be an active member. most of them you can actually join and just read it and not be an active participant. But I've always thought that that's such a strange, almost anti ethical way of doing things.

If your purpose is to be an educational platform, if you're meant to be the beginner's intro to crypto, but I can access, I can read if I have questions, I can't even ask. And I can't even access these people. Probably these people are very well known in Twitter. They don't have their DMs open. Even if it's open, they probably wouldn't even see it.

So how do you think about that? Cause you said there were pros and cons.

Zeneca: Yeah, I think about it a lot. And we were sort of actively working on how we can bring more people into Zen academy and help them. The next step is what we're going to, basically, it doesn't solve a lot of that, but we're going to partner with other community is a project.

So let's say if you own a Curious Addy's NFT, you can join and be verified in Zen academy and participate in work with just as many communities as we can to get people. So if you have like one of 10 entities, you can talk. The other thing is we have a bo t ticket options. So if you have a question, you can ask it and we'll answer. Like, usually the questions are like specific to how do I join Zenacademy?

Why would I join or I have a technical issues.

But we not infrequently get people asking just general questions we do a good job of filling those. So Curious Addys is the project I just mentioned. They have come up with they've solved this problem.

Basically they've come up with this project or platform called ember.help. where anyone can go and ask any question and someone will be there and reply to it within I think 24 hours, but usually less. And so they've integrated it in their server as like a bot. Anyone can type and answer a question.

We're going to get that in Zen academy service soon. But you can just go to the website as well and ask the question. So we're going to promote that as well within Zen academy and externally, because I think that's just such a great way to help this space.

Ling Yah: Yeah. I love it when I was speaking to Mai, and she's like, they basically gamified it and it just really took off in a space.

That's really creative and just fantastic. I was one of those lurkers on your Zenacademy because I wanted to do research and I thought it was very interesting when you made that announcement saying, I don't want to be like any other NFT project and you basically burn it to the ground the way that you were doing things.

Tell me what was going on at the time, what your thoughts were.

Zeneca: Yeah, so I think this would have been about two months ago now. We launched in November, but this has got to have been around since I think August In the early days, there was this really sort of magical, strong community sense and vibe.

And I had just sort of noticed that disappearing as time went on, we were sort of losing our soul. And I noticed that first and I looked at sort of the metrics, the discord insights, and like engagement was down. People weren't as active people were in checking the server as much. And I just thought about why was this?

And one of the reasons was we just had way too many channels.

We thought that maybe there should be just tons of channels and resources for people to go and learn and ask questions about any, particular topic and read conversation, but it turned out it was overwhelming for me and veterans let alone for someone new to the space.

So step one was burning it to the ground and getting rid of 99% of channels and just really simplifying it. But step two was sort of, I had realized that I spent the first two or three months of this year, looking at what other projects were doing and trying to sort of replicate their methods for success or looking at what more about seeing what other projects were providing and what I thought people wanted and providing it to them.

in terms of like more collaborations and meatless giveaways and like AMAs in the server with other projects But We don't want to be like all the projects and what attracts people to Zenacademy, I think is making it not like other projects. Another thing we were looking at as like alpha calls and getting out sophisticated bots, we took like analysis and tools and, while they great and extremely valuable for certain servers of people, it's not very beginner friendly and it sort of like splits attention in too many areas.

And so I thought about what did attract people, who's Zen academy in the first place, and it was sorta like, it was me, my content, my sort of approach. And so I, I thought about, well, (a) I can be more present and be more involved and I can sort of try and bring in other content creators and other people into the team who have that same sort of values and ethos and can provide that sort of voice.

That's very Zen academy and nothing else. And so, yeah, we went through this period where we just stripped ton of the servers, simplified things. I spent a lot more time and engagement has sort of turned around and I'm really, really feeling good about where we're at at the moment.

Ling Yah: Since you feel so good about where you are at the moment, what does success look like for Zenacademy?

Zeneca: That's a really good question. That's one that I ask people a lot. Success to me is what we are right now, like to me, it's to continue being what we are. So I'm always weary of what did happen a few months ago, scaling and growing and like losing ourselves in the process. I just don't want that to happen. I understand that there are going to be projects that come along with that, through what we're trying to do in many respects and do it way better.

They're going to be bigger educational platforms, better for people to learn about NFTs, more structured courses and guides and everything. people will raise VC funds and, they'll have bespoke websites and mobile apps which is fantastic. That's going to elevate the space, but I am wary of doing any of that.

If it's going to be at the cost of the community and the vibe and the ethos we have. I'm a huge believer in taking things slow work-life balance. So we try and take weekends off at Zen academy, even in this crazy space, I'm a big believer in mental health and staying sane and supporting one another.

We have a few values and core ethos at Zen academy of the two of them. That I really like I think our fundamental one is we make haste slowly, so we'll try and do things, but we'll take it at our own pace. And another one, which I saw recently as a tweet that I really loved is direction is more important than speed.

And so we're just figuring out the direction we're moving in, making small pivots and generally inching forward at a pace that we're happy with. just continuing to try and do good things, help people I think is really core and anyone that's in our community, but also the wider community. And just be a place that, people enjoy hanging out in and, get some value out of.

I feel really good with where we're at. So to me we're already successful and as long as we keep doing what we're doing and don't ruin ourselves or fumble the bag, which I'm trying hard not to Which it's actually doesn't take you that much work.

It's very low stress, I would say.

Ling Yah: I would love to explore more the concept of community by going to another conversation I had with another guest professor, Robin Dunbar, who formulated the Empress number. And I mean, obviously he's done lots of research into how the whole relationship, how the people, you know, how many friends can one person have at any one time going all the way back to the stone age.

And when I asked him about web three, he was very, very firm and he sat back. It's just impossible to build a proper relationship. If you don't meet them in person, if you can't see the whites of the other person's height, but the whole nature of web three is that you don't see them. You might even have avatars. You have an ape instead of a person.

So I wonder what your thoughts are. Just firstly, building virtual friendships and relationships.

Zeneca: Yeah. it's a really interesting topic. I think the definition of what makes a real relationship is important and I think also changing. So while I agree that it's impossible to have. Most humans for the history of humanity would consider a real relationship, a real connection.

It's impossible to have that without looking, being physically with someone. And it is very different. The relationship you have being physically with someone that being online, even people you talk to all the time, even if you use voice chat, even if you video chat, even if you are in the metaverse, even if it's VR it is very different than being in person.

So I would agree with him. That's like you can't replicate that you can't, but I think that you can have something that is distinctly different, but perhaps equally as powerful, perhaps more powerful in certain respects in terms of friendship and connection. And I think that's sort of what we're seeing in terms of the community and the vibe.

And for many people, there's a level of comfort that comes with the separation, the physical separation. And so, you know, people feel more free to open up maybe and be more themselves, share more of themselves without fear of anything potentially happening in the physical world.

And I think that it's just a, really a different type of relationship, different type of community. And there's also like, again with the power of technology, you can do things digitally that you cannot do physically, like. You can meet more frequently because of people around the world, or you can be in a gaming environment and be playing a video game together.

One thing that I, it doesn't, I'm pretty sure doesn't exist yet, but I think will, is sort of like therapy in the digital world and in the metaverse. And I think that a lot of people have fear and anxiety of going to a therapist. And I think that bringing that into someone's home is going to be helpful and beneficial.

And an example that I always draw on is that I'm very arachnophobic. I hate spiders. but want to not be arachnophobic, right. I want to get over it. And what's one of the best ways is immersion therapy. It's like, surrounding yourself with it. That terrifies me. I'm really anxious.

I don't wanna do that. But imagine if I could put on a VR headset and be in a virtual world therapist, office space where there are now spiders crawling on me or around me, it looks like that. It feels like that my mind will be split where I'll be like, I'll be terrified at night, anxious, but I'll be able to say I a hundred percent know that I'm sitting on my couch at home.

I'm safe, I'm comfortable. I'll get used to it. So I think that just by nature of the d igital world is things that are possible and relationships that are possible that will never be possible in the physical world. But similarly as he said, you can't replicate what's possible in physical world.

Completely.

Ling Yah: To build those relationships, you must first find these people. And as you said earlier, most people don't even know what Discord is. I mean, for me, I didn't even use Twitter before I started exploring what web three was. So how do you even begin to network and put yourself out there?

Do you just start writing through the tweets and just throwing it out there into the space and hope someone starts picking it up?

Zeneca: I would say asking questions is the best way. I think that, to me, that's just the best way of meeting people, getting to know people, getting people to know you. And especially if you're starting out, but honestly, wherever you are in your journey by and large people in the web three space, but also just, I think in nature, want to help other people.

And I feel appreciated if they're asked a question because they're like, oh, this person thinks I have something of value to add to them. I'll take the time to respond and then feel like I'm adding value back. So yes. Join discord, join Twitter, ask questions, follow people ask questions for who you should follow.

and just keep going from there. And I will say that so much of the space does r evolve around Twitter and discord at the moment. But as the space grows and opens up, we're starting to see distinct communities on Tik TOK and Instagram and Facebook groups and traditional social media is also embracing NFTs and crypto more and more.

And so you don't necessarily have to step out of your comfort zone and join discord. But I would say that are probably missing a lot if you don't, at least now.

Ling Yah: You've said before that NFTs are inevitable, but that mainstream adoption would not be happening overnight. I wonder when it does become mainstream, what does that future look like?

Zeneca: I think it looks like the technology will be abstracted away for the most part, most people will not even know or recognize or understand that they're interacting with NFTs on a day-to-day basis and they probably wouldn't even be called NFTs. They'll be called something else. We were already starting to see this, I think Instagram and maybe even Coinbase, they're calling them digital assets, digital goods, digital collectables, maybe.

And I think, the vernacular will change. NFTs has a bit of a negative connotation right now. And I think that the technical, obviously the technology and the word nomenclature there won't change, but like in the public's eyes, there'll be different words. And it'll be abstracted away. I say that NFTs will go mainstream when my 97 year old grandma and my eight year old niece can both interact with them in the same way that they can be using an iPad and playing a game that technology is so seamless and easy and second nature.

we need to get to that point. It's going to take years and years and years just like it did with computers and the internet But I really do believe it's inevitable because it's inevitable that our lives are going to continue to be in the digital age and space I don't think we're ever going back to pre-internet pre-computers or anything. And I think the NFTs are just a clear value add and, layer of technological sophistication that allows for innovation that we have never seen before that will make lives easier. And just make the world a better place that it isn't evitable, but it's going to take time.

Ling Yah: I wonder what your thoughts are given that this is inevitable, but we are currently going through a bear market.

Zeneca: Bear markets are also inevitable, especially in a a space as speculative and high-risk and everything as cryptomeria and NFS people are going to overextend themselves. People are going to speculate and, and there's no real value.

And it's also highly unregulated as well. So we'll see things like the Terra and Luna collapse where top 10 coin goes to basically zero. And so when that happens, you get bearish markets and, also not to mention just the macro economic situation in the world is also not great right now.

And that's felt in crypto. So bear markets are inevitable. I think that it will probably it'll like flush people out. Some people just came to make money and to flip. They probably kind of like me in 20 16, 20 17, where I didn't have that conviction. I didn't really understand the tech and see the future in the vision.

So when the bear market hit, I left and the true builders they stayed and the true believers stay, they had conviction and financially they were watered probably in other ways they were rewarded. And if they felt that they were contributing and feeling fulfilled and found careers and jobs that worked for them.

And I think that the same will be true for any, future bear markets in crypto and NFTs.

Ling Yah: What does your crypto portfolio look like in this bear market and how can people think about their own?

Zeneca: It, I mean, it hasn't changed a whole lot. I don't do too much trading, but I try and consolidate as much of my portfolio as I can, to what I call blue chips and the projects that I have the most conviction in.

And that I think are the most likely to be around years and years and years from now. ArtBlocks is number one by far, is that my holdings in terms of quantity and conviction and money and assets. And I have more conviction in that than anything else. Bored apes assets and, and that whole ecosystem UK ecosystem yeah, it would have to be number two.

Cause I have a lot of conviction and faith in them and I believe that they'll be around for a while, but less so than a box by, I say a considerable margin, I think it's a lot more speculative. And then it's other PFP projects, doodles, moon, birds. And then almost like a smorgasbord of like small to medium tier projects that I think have potential.

And maybe they make it or not, but I think if they're around in a few years old they'll, or even a year, they'll do very, very well. And that's everything from PFP projects, membership, tokens gaming assets art from one-to-one artists yeah, everything.

Ling Yah: Do you ever feel hesitant to share what you're interested in, what you're going to buy, because I I'm thinking of, for instance, say Elon Musk when he speaks to market moves and when you speak a lot of people just follow you blindly. Does it worry you that people just jump in just based on what you throw out?

Zeneca: Yeah, I'm, I'm hyper cognizant about what I say, how I say it when I say it, who I say it to, I think it's in a market so immature as the NFT market, crypto market. And by that, I mean like new and not financially enormous. Also I guess, socially immature it's very easy and common for one person who has two or 300,000 Twitter followers, tweet something and move the markets and that's dangerous.

And I think that, yeah, people can get hurt, but following you blindly. And obviously there's manipulation that can take place and there are bad actors out there. And so I'm, I'm really cognizant to try and act in a way that I think is, ethical and upholds my personal morals. And that usually means like, if I do talk about a project, these days I generally try and only talk about projects that I'm positive about.

I don't like to denigrate or like dunk on projects and say that about it because you never know what the team's going through, what the founders, you don't know the full story. and maybe you're missing something. I would say the exception is if there's a clear scam rug bull type thing, or, or there's a security issue that you need to alert people about.

So that's, one thing. And the other is if I talk about a project and positively, just know that I don't have a hard rule, but I'm like, I'm not selling any NFTs related to that for quite a while. Cause I think that's like, I don't think it's bad to talk positively about projects that you're bullish on and that you really like.

And to share that information, I think the, danger comes, if you're then sit like actively selling while you're sharing that information. I think that's, that's really unethical. The other thing is disclosure and disclosing my holdings, like as much as I can, that is reasonable and feasible and, and make sense.

And the other thing is not front running. So if I, plan to post about something, not, the day before going and buying a bunch of those assets to get ahead of the curve, or if I have insight information, because I talked to a lot of project founders and the consultant advise, and I know that, oh, they're going to drop a huge announcement. to it. not acting on it. And also not sharing it with anyone else.

Ling Yah: I recently found this out that apparently anyone can drop an NFT into your wallet and you can't even stop them. And apparently, I don't know if you're aware, some people were watching your wallet and they saw certain entities being dropped and then they, quickly mink thinking, oh, surely it's something that it's quiet.

But if Zeneca is going to mint it is big and they realize it's not it's a rug pull. So it just seems there's nothing you can do, right. There's nothing you can prevent it's not like you can put a warning around your wallet saying, don't follow everything. I'm going to put everything

out there.

Zeneca: You're right.

There's nothing you can do. The warning idea is actually interesting. Cause I could like on open seat, put like in your book you have a buyer. You could write something. So I'm actually, after you said that that's actually a really good idea. cause people do it. They will watch my wallet and see what's airdropped and scammers basically can make it look as if I minted it.

And so people see, oh, it looks like Zeneca bought this and then there's copy. Like again, from my watch, they think I bought these almost be good, which is a terrible strategy. I don't recommend that to everyone because a, my situation is very different and my strategy is very different. I might be buying something.

You're thinking I'm going to hold it for five years. I might be buying something with no expectation of profit. I might be buying something just to support someone or because I like it, or whatever reason who knows. So, yeah, just copy trading in general is bad, but it's even more so bad because yeah.

Like you said, anyone can drop anything and then it looks like I'm into the border, but it's actually a scam collection. there's nothing there. They're just going to disappear with your money. Or worse directly to a website that's malicious and gonna drain your wallet or something like that.

So yeah, don't ever meant something because you see anyone else meant it. if that does happen and you're interested or curious, you know, just ask other people about it, join during the discord open a ticket in Zen academy, there, there will be ways to verify and communicate but yeah, it's a terrible strategy and but yeah, you're right.

That there's nothing anyone can do to stop others from sending NFCS to your wallet. That's by nature of how the blockchain works they can just send whatever they want and you can't refuse them. I had a call with one of my accountants yesterday and I was talking him through that and telling him just how difficult it's been to do my taxes because of how many NFTs they are.

And then how do you value those NFTs? And then as an airdrop, do you have to pay tax on anything? And he was like, well, how many do you have? And I had 41,300 transactions. Wow. Yeah,

I did not envy your accountant. Yeah, I don't, I it's my least favorite part of that web three dealing with accountants and lawyers, but it's necessary.

Ling Yah: Well, I wouldn't take personal offense to that second part.

Zeneca: Yeah. I used to say my least favorite part about web three was accountants and lawyers, but I've changed it to say just the legal work, any county work dealing with. Yeah. That's the bad part. The accountants and lawyers themselves are wonderful people.

Ling Yah: So I mean, clearly you've done the success. A lot of people are following you. How does that affect your happiness?

Zeneca: I would say I would be slightly happier now than I was maybe a year, year and a bit ago, but I would say it hasn't enormously shifted it from say this time last year, it's just like different life situation, different problems, different opportunities, different things to do and to deal with.

And I think that by and large, I very strongly believe that say money or followers or anything external doesn't really impact happiness. After a certain point after you're sort of out of poverty after you have your basic needs met then I think you really have the ability to react. Decide for yourself how you approach life, how you feel about every, whatever situation you're in.

Because I think at the end of the day, we can't, it's out of our control to decide what situation we're in. I am at a position right now where I've had a lot of financial success over the last year, and I've had a lot of, I guess, social success and a lot of people are following me But it could disappear tomorrow. I could completely all go to zero. And there's infinite situations where I wouldn't have been in this situation. You know, maybe I made the wrong investments last year. I didn't buy board. I'm sitting by at blocks. Didn't go well. I went back to playing poker and I think that being able to sort of find a way to be content with your life situation regardless of outcomes, is, is really, really important.

And I try to focus on that actively, I would say, but I definitely do feel a little happy now. Honestly I think the biggest part would probably be that I've now doing something that I really love and that I feel exciting, interesting new I'm contributing to society. I feel like I'm good at it, all that kind of stuff.

So, whereas with poker after 15 years, it was getting to be a bit of a grind and monotonous, and I just didn't, I wasn't as enthused by that.

Ling Yah: Is there anything that people listening can help you with?

Zeneca: It's a wonderful question. I think just generally. Being kind and being nice and just like helping others.

I think that's all I can ask for or one I want others to help others. And I think that for the most part, people in this space do due to that, and I really helpful. And I think just, be kind and empathetic, I think.

Ling Yah: Is there anything that you believe in that most people don't?

Zeneca: Ooh, that's a really good question too. Well, I mean, that's interesting because then, I don't know what most people believe. I'm not religious, but then I don't know if most people are religious. And so then I believe in et cetera, et cetera. Nothing wild. I don't think any, any wild comes to mind.

Ling Yah: Well, thank you so much, Zeneca for your time.

I love to end all my interviews the same question. So the first is says, do you feel like you have found your why?

Zeneca: Yes. A hundred percent. So there's this Japanese concept, ikigai. And I feel like I've found that again, what I was alluding to before about finding.

I feel. Eternally fortunate that I found that basically.

Ling Yah: And what kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

Zeneca: I would be happy knowing that I made one life easier or better, like just, yeah.

Ling Yah: And what do you think are the most important qualities of a successful person?

Zeneca: Patience, I think is a big one. And empathy, I think empathy more than anything. And by that, I mean the ability to see life and situations from the perspective of others. So I think personally and emotionally, that that is so helpful in terms of just being content as a human and, and helping others.

But in terms of commercial success as well understanding what people want. How you can help them achieve what they want. And often it might not be what you immediately think of. but yeah.

Ling Yah: And where can people go to connect with you? Find them more about what you're doing?

Zeneca: Twitter. My Twitter account is probably the best although I can, yeah, I should be directing people to YouTube and other places, but I say go to Twitter. Because from there you can find Zan academy and the three through three club, you could find my YouTube channel. You can find my podcasts, you can find my newsletter.

But Twitter is sort of home base. It's at Zeneca underscore 33.

Ling Yah: And that was the end of episode 86 part two.

The show notes can be found at www.sothisismywhy.com/86-2. And do stick around for next week, because we're meeting one of the world's most famous in entrepreneurs, the co-founder of Evernote.

Yes. That note taking app that everyone's used or heard of at least to talk about his journey as a Russian immigrant, how he built his first few startups leading to Evernote and now mm-hmm which is actually in the name of his current company. Why he thinks being a founder is really, really, really, truly not as glamorous as you think and why he thinks that blockchain is a communist propaganda.

Want to learn more?

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and see you next Sunday.