1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,360
Hello everyone Sandel Podcast number 45, 45 episodes since May 28th.

2
00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:16,400
That's that's how much content the sandbox Tao has been generating for the the Sand

3
00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:18,120
Fam community.

4
00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:25,920
And today we're continuing our mini series on the lessons from other Tao's.

5
00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:31,680
We've heard from 8coin Tao, we've heard from city Tao, and now we are going to hear from

6
00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:38,320
Bankless Tao, now called Black Flag Tao, and the lessons and the different things that

7
00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:39,960
we can learn from them.

8
00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:43,920
I have Rowan, True Cat, and Zeefi here.

9
00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:44,920
Welcome everybody.

10
00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:47,160
Thanks for having us.

11
00:00:47,160 --> 00:00:48,160
Hey thanks.

12
00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:53,500
So the scope of the talk today is it is a meet and greet with our illustrious guests

13
00:00:53,500 --> 00:00:56,920
and a learning opportunity, things that went well, things that didn't go well, things to

14
00:00:56,920 --> 00:01:02,640
watch out for, things that we can that we can incorporate ourselves into our our own

15
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:04,440
ecosystem.

16
00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:10,440
Disclaimer is that nothing, nothing said today is financial legal advice, nothing we say

17
00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:12,480
is to be taken as that.

18
00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,680
And I do not represent the sandbox game or the sandbox Tao foundation.

19
00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:22,600
Rowan, True Cat, Zeefi, please tell me do you represent the the Black Flag Tao now?

20
00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:26,160
Is that the the way to say that?

21
00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:28,200
I would say yes.

22
00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:34,240
We're not official spokespeople I guess you would say.

23
00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:36,960
Okay, so there are community members of the...

24
00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:37,960
Yeah.

25
00:01:37,960 --> 00:01:38,960
Got it.

26
00:01:38,960 --> 00:01:39,960
Alright, everyone's head nodding.

27
00:01:39,960 --> 00:01:40,960
Okay.

28
00:01:40,960 --> 00:01:47,800
When I won't say the word SIP too much, but we will say the word Tao, which means to centralize

29
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:49,560
autonomous organization.

30
00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:53,480
When I say the word SanFam, I'm talking about the sandbox community who participate in the

31
00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:57,280
people products and purpose of the sandbox ecosystem.

32
00:01:57,280 --> 00:01:59,800
Do you all over in Black Flag Tao?

33
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:05,560
Do you have a like a different way you call family like we say sandbox family SanFam?

34
00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:07,240
Not yet.

35
00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:08,840
Not yet?

36
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:10,720
Okay, working on it.

37
00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:11,720
Alright.

38
00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:12,720
So the ecosystem...

39
00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:13,720
For a while there we would be TaoFam.

40
00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:14,720
For a while there we would be TaoFam.

41
00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:15,720
For a while there we would be TaoFam.

42
00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:16,720
For a while there we would be TaoFam.

43
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:17,720
For a while there we would be TaoFam.

44
00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:18,720
For a while there we would be TaoFam.

45
00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:19,720
For a while there we would be TaoFam.

46
00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:20,720
We used to share it in bankless Tao to pay Tao.

47
00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:21,720
Ba dog Tao strong Tao yet.

48
00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:22,720
Alec Tao.

49
00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:23,720
I like that.

50
00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:24,720
introduced to tao.

51
00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:29,920
So scoreboard and checkbook have not moved yet because we just implemented the delegation

52
00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:30,920
system.

53
00:02:30,920 --> 00:02:33,440
And the TaoAdmin team has been working on that.

54
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:38,520
And we'll return back to SIPs, important proposals here in the next week.

55
00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:40,040
We have three guests today.

56
00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:45,160
As I mentioned C FPS Rowan and true cat all are part of the what's called The Transition

57
00:02:45,160 --> 00:02:46,400
C chocolates.

58
00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:53,120
the Bankless DAO to the Black Flag DAO. And let's get into some introductions. Z-Fy, let's start with

59
00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:59,920
you. Please give us a little bit about who you are. Sure. Excuse me. I joined Bankless DAO back

60
00:02:59,920 --> 00:03:05,840
in November of 21. So it's been three years now as we're coming up on this transition here to Black

61
00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:13,680
Flag. I started the organization, gosh, it was an attempt at like, is this the next thing? Is this

62
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:19,120
the future of work? And that's what drew me to the DAO space in general. And how I approached it was

63
00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:25,760
like a two-pronged kind of approach. I tried to bring skills that I had already to the DAO.

64
00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:30,080
And that's what I jumped into, like the education department and operations.

65
00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,960
And then I tried to find new information on skills that I didn't know. And that's where I

66
00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:41,920
dipped into Audio Visual Guild. So it was just kind of a immersion. And I've been in every corner of

67
00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:49,280
the DAO since then and looking forward to the reboot here in the Black Flag DAO. Thank you,

68
00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:58,080
Z-Fy. Rowan. Yeah. So I've been around pretty much as long as Z-Fy was an original member of

69
00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:07,280
the DAO when it was first created by the Bankless LLC folks, Ryan and David. I wasn't as involved

70
00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:14,400
initially just because life, you know, prevented me from getting involved, but I was lurking for

71
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:20,320
a few months and then early in 2022. Yeah, right. Like you got to learn. And I would say

72
00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:28,320
on that note, anyone interested in DAOs, there's a fairly steep learning curve. Like it's kind of a,

73
00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:37,680
it's a novel way to organize people, self-organize communities. So yeah, it was an interesting

74
00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:46,160
experience for sure. And what drew me there was, you know, I was a long-time listener of the

75
00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:53,840
Bankless podcast that Ryan and David host. And I was really attracted to sort of the ethos that

76
00:04:53,840 --> 00:05:00,480
they espoused of decentralization and, you know, it's in the name like Bankless, go Bankless.

77
00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:08,000
You know, we can, we have the technology available to us to empower individuals over institutions,

78
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:16,080
especially in the financial realm now. So, you know, power, money is power. And I was interested

79
00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:23,600
in contributing to whatever that meant. So it was exciting. And yeah, my contributions to

80
00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:32,800
the iteration known as Bankless DAO were largely in ops and now with the Transition Council.

81
00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:39,280
And, you know, I think, I think the three of us were pretty much always involved in governance,

82
00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:45,040
to some extent. I mean, I won't speak for Z-Fi or True, but those, you know, those types of

83
00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:53,200
contributions aren't necessarily roles in a lot of DAOs. So yeah, I think ops reflects the sort of

84
00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:58,960
role-based contributions that I've made and now with Transition Council.

85
00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:05,120
Gotcha. And so you said you're in the core coordination and ops department? Is that it?

86
00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:10,400
Yeah, it was. It was the Operations Department. Yeah.

87
00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:12,000
And now Transition Council.

88
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:17,520
Yeah. The Operations Department doesn't exist anymore. It may in the future or another.

89
00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:22,800
Yeah. And Z-Fi, did you say you were in the AV

90
00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:27,760
department and also what other one? I started out in education and AV,

91
00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:34,000
and then kind of expanded into ops and some government governance stuff and pretty much

92
00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:36,880
anything else. I just was hungry. Tried to learn everything.

93
00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:40,160
Went from a skill set you knew in education to a skill set you wanted to learn in AV.

94
00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:41,440
Correct. Got it.

95
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:49,200
And True. True Cat. Awesome name by the way.

96
00:06:50,080 --> 00:06:59,120
Thank you. Yeah, look, I joined in at the end of August in 2021. I probably would have

97
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:05,760
lurked for a lot longer, but I actually, the people who know me know that I tend to spot

98
00:07:05,760 --> 00:07:11,760
mistakes quite easily. And so I actually spotted something that I felt I needed to speak up about.

99
00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:17,680
It was they're holding like a design logo competition for Academy and they put one of

100
00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:22,480
the wrong finalists through to the final vote. And I was like, oh, and I had actually...

101
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:25,840
Not on my watch....which didn't get through.

102
00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:30,880
And that was fine. But I spoke up because I was like, oh, hold on. I think you've miscounted.

103
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:39,200
So that is what sort of launched me into the DOW. And I was part of Design Guild through that.

104
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:46,880
AV Guild. I held some roles there. I was also in Research Guild. I was a strong part of Writers

105
00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:50,000
Guild. I contributed to Ox. A fellow writer.

106
00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:56,240
On and off. And yeah, and speaking of skill sets, you kind of realize you had like, I've

107
00:07:56,240 --> 00:08:01,840
had a reputation since I joined the DOW of being a good editor. I don't have any editing training

108
00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:09,840
or anything like that, but I just spot detail. So yeah, so I've contributed across a range of

109
00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:13,280
places in the DOW and yeah, it's become a second home.

110
00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:23,520
And when did you get involved in crypto? Around that same time. I hadn't been exposed

111
00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:28,640
to it. I had a very short run in the couple of months prior to joining the DOW. I was kind of

112
00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:34,560
listening to some podcasts and seeing things that I was interested in. I always thought that the

113
00:08:34,560 --> 00:08:39,440
first time I heard about a DOW, I thought it was really a bunch of just very anonymous people

114
00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:44,960
not interacting with each other and just voting on smart contract proposals. And so it was

115
00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:51,120
astounding to me how human Bankless DOW actually was when I got there. And I love that.

116
00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:58,720
And I want to write that down. It was astounding how human

117
00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:05,280
the DOW was. Very human, very human interactions. That's a good way to phrase that.

118
00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:11,760
And I think that persists. Like I think that's something that persists today. You know, it's

119
00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:17,120
very, it's a really interesting community. I can't say that I, you know, I'm not comparing

120
00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:24,160
and contrasting because I haven't been involved in a lot of DOWs, but there are great vibes,

121
00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:32,320
great people. Yeah. I traveled to Denver earlier this year to meet a whole bunch of people from

122
00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:39,680
Bankless DOW, Black Flag DOW now. And I didn't know that I would get to meet them ever, but

123
00:09:39,680 --> 00:09:45,760
the opportunity came and I was able to attend East Denver. And, you know, the hugs that you,

124
00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:50,480
and we've talked about this a lot, even just people living in America, meeting each other

125
00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:55,280
for the first time, but for me to travel from Australia and meet all of these people who I've,

126
00:09:55,280 --> 00:10:02,160
you know, been in calls with for so long, it was instant hugs, instant comfort with each other.

127
00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:08,080
Just really, really great lifelong friends. That's cool. I like that. That's pretty special.

128
00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:12,320
It's like, if you've been a gamer for a long time, you might have

129
00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:17,440
felt the same camaraderie, that instant connection where like, hey!

130
00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:25,280
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I myself have only known about DOW since May 28th of this year.

131
00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:30,320
I didn't even know what a DOW was until the sandbox. DOW said, surprise, here we are.

132
00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:38,560
And it's been on a journey ever since then. We are learning a lot as fast as we can.

133
00:10:38,560 --> 00:10:41,680
You've been DOW filled.

134
00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:49,360
Thank you. So let's get the first one. So Bankless DOW, which short for, when we say B-DOW,

135
00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:53,760
if we ever say that, that means Bankless DOW. And then Black Flag DOW, I'm just going to say BF DOW.

136
00:10:54,800 --> 00:11:02,240
So from the timeline that I've been able to piece together, in May of 2021, that's when it was

137
00:11:02,240 --> 00:11:08,640
founded by David and Ryan with 35,000, and I'm quoting just from what I pulled from websites and

138
00:11:08,640 --> 00:11:15,360
everything else, founded it with a 35,000 airdrop to Bankless Subs as a separate entity from the

139
00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:22,880
Bankless LLC. That's important for what comes later. So November, 2023, Bankless DOW proposes,

140
00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:33,040
submits a proposal in Arbitrum DOW. November 2023, also Bankless LLC podcast occurs with

141
00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:40,000
David and Ryan. Then September in 2024, there's the Bankless podcast episode, which is what

142
00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:50,480
originally I listened to first with Z-Fy and Rowan articulating what happened on their side.

143
00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:58,640
And then 2024, sometime in 2024, starts the reorg timeline, of which as a fellow PM, I am super,

144
00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:06,880
so impressed. Whoever put this thing together, this reorg timeline was a pro.

145
00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:14,000
So it looks like everything starts about May-ish, is when all this temperature checks start,

146
00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:20,400
and just phenomenal. If it's a team effort, y'all are doing phenomenal when it comes to

147
00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:26,480
articulating what steps you have to take, and it's awesome. And then sometime in the future,

148
00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:32,480
there's a transition to Black Flag. Z-Fy is sitting over there looking very modest.

149
00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:40,160
Z-Fy? I have you to thank for the presentation of it and the maintenance. Like I said, as a

150
00:12:40,160 --> 00:12:48,000
fellow program manager, I think that it was so clear to me where to work in questions and

151
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:55,760
research, and now transitioning sometime in the future to BlackFlagCollective.org. Did I miss

152
00:12:55,760 --> 00:13:00,160
anything in terms of context? I'm sure there's a ton of stuff I missed.

153
00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:06,960
Yeah, I do want to make a small correction, because Black Flag Collective is actually

154
00:13:06,960 --> 00:13:14,240
not Black Flag Dow. Okay, let me just delete that right off the slide.

155
00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:21,200
Well, you don't need to delete it, I don't think. It's part of the Dow, but it's not the Dow.

156
00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:24,400
So go ahead, Drew, I think you were going to elaborate.

157
00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:31,120
Yeah, so one of our community members is by his own admission, sometimes impatient,

158
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:39,520
and he's been very keen to champion the Black Flag brand, and he has really wanted to get going on

159
00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:48,560
some IRL events. And so he started the Black Flag Collective a little while ago, and that website,

160
00:13:48,560 --> 00:13:57,520
BlackFlagCollective.org, is actually what he has set up in order to, he's got a pull together going

161
00:13:57,520 --> 00:14:02,560
where people can contribute, and then they vote on the proceeds of the pull together going towards

162
00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:09,920
IRL events. And so that's what Black Flag Collective is doing. And that's kind of

163
00:14:09,920 --> 00:14:13,520
been happening in parallel to our transition process in the Dow.

164
00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:14,880
Got it. And so we're...

165
00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:19,520
We are Black Flag Dow, and we will have a website soon on that domain.

166
00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:23,600
Got it, got it. So okay, no website yet. So I didn't miss anything important then.

167
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:29,360
That's right. So you're organizing through Discord and through, I think you still have the podcast,

168
00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:32,960
and I just see a new episode come out not long ago. And...

169
00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:35,600
The Making Bank podcast?

170
00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:40,880
Maybe, maybe. Now I'm getting all twisted up in my brain.

171
00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:42,480
Was it Z-Fi and I?

172
00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:45,040
Yes, yes, that's the one.

173
00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:53,440
That's Making Bank, and that is hosted by a fella named Drost. So, I mean, I guess for context,

174
00:14:54,320 --> 00:15:03,040
there, in the iteration of Bankless Dow, there were, we focused on sort of like a permissionless

175
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:11,520
approach to projects or initiatives. There were permissions around securing funding, but

176
00:15:11,520 --> 00:15:17,920
you could pretty much do whatever you wanted to do under the name of the Dow, which was both great

177
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:24,400
and not so great as we'll get into, and what ultimately precipitated some of where we ended up

178
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:34,160
now. But all to say, Drost created Making Bank back when Bankless Dow was a thing, and he has

179
00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:42,000
carried it on since. So it is one podcast associated with and started sort of within Bankless Dow,

180
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:47,360
but there are others, just as there are other sort of, you know, newsletters and

181
00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:50,800
general sort of media output.

182
00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:58,240
Got it. Okay. So about when, Z-Fi or anyone else, about when do you expect the transition to

183
00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:00,000
BFDOW to conclude?

184
00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:03,040
We're hoping as soon as possible. I think we...

185
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:04,320
Soon as possible. Okay.

186
00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:10,160
Like the end of the year as our guideline, as our goalpost, but we've had some delays along the way,

187
00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:12,480
so it may extend into 2025.

188
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:15,440
Okay. Got it. All right. Let's get right into the...

189
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:25,840
I sent you our new logo in our discourse chat, in case you'd like to share it.

190
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:30,400
I would love to. It's an easy thing to...

191
00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:33,680
Thanks for doing that, Drew.

192
00:16:36,640 --> 00:16:39,200
All right. Very good. Very good.

193
00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:48,400
Okay. Black Flag Dow logo. And here we go.

194
00:16:48,400 --> 00:17:00,880
Let's just resize this a little bit. Let's get into that first question.

195
00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:09,200
The purpose of BDOW versus Black Flag Dow or BFDOW. So BDOW, what I found, I just copy pasted from

196
00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:15,680
either a news article or website. What's it? Oh, it was the Google page that I found the notion

197
00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:22,160
that BDOW, its mission was media and social Dow onboarding 1 billion people to crypto,

198
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:29,840
or that was the goal. Is that... Is there any... Just start just comments all around?

199
00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:32,080
Close? Did I get close?

200
00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:35,200
I think that's pretty accurate for the old one.

201
00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:41,680
Yep. For the old one, for sure. And I mean, I would qualify anything that we say

202
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:46,720
in the sense that we may have been around when that was established, but I don't know to what

203
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:51,200
extent we were a part of that decision. I feel like a lot of the sort of mission,

204
00:17:51,200 --> 00:17:58,000
vision and values were largely defined by people closer to Bankless LLC. I mean, it started,

205
00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:05,840
it was sort of the brainchild of that group. And people obviously were very interested,

206
00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:10,880
like myself and the three of us here. And I think that's the way BDOW was

207
00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:18,720
structured. But yeah, that was... And I feel like that is sort of... That's a spin off of

208
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:24,000
maybe what Ryan and David were similar to what Ryan and David were trying to achieve

209
00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:28,400
through their podcast. But yeah, that's more or less...

210
00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:31,040
That permissionless approach that you were commenting on earlier?

211
00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:33,760
In what sense?

212
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:39,600
When you said that there was a permissionless approach to... I think you were attributing that

213
00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:44,320
to BDOW or is it now Black BF DOW? BDOW, yeah.

214
00:18:44,320 --> 00:18:52,000
Okay. Yeah, the idea was that there would be lots of media nodes. And in the original Genesis

215
00:18:52,000 --> 00:19:00,400
proposal, Bankless LLC talked about being a media node of the DOW with their podcast. And so the

216
00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:10,480
idea was that under a headless brand, people would be able to produce media in all forms and education

217
00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:19,200
to further the Bankless mission. And it used to often get shorthanded to onboarding the next

218
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:26,960
billion people to crypto, which is something that a lot of people use. The one that you read is

219
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:34,640
actually the one that was always established as permission and vision. But certainly what attracted

220
00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:41,440
to me to the DOW was that education and media angle, because I was... In the very short time

221
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:47,440
I'd been exposed to this world, I was worried that if I wasn't technical, I didn't necessarily have a

222
00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:50,160
home. So... Yeah.

223
00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:54,640
I definitely can sympathize with that perspective for sure.

224
00:19:54,640 --> 00:20:03,440
And so there was a lot of effort in DOW at that time to provide information to people who were

225
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:13,120
new, the normies of who are dipping their toes into crypto and maybe don't even know the phrase

226
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:22,640
not your keys, not your crypto. Help people understand what this whole space is about and

227
00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:30,880
maybe what they can gain from it and definitely what they can learn. So Z-Fi spent a lot of time

228
00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:36,960
in the education department. Maybe he can speak to some more of their efforts, but obviously there

229
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:42,800
was a lot of outreach in terms of media, the various media nodes, podcasts, newsletters, and so on.

230
00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:50,240
And then there were also educational components, whether it was the Project Bankless Academy,

231
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:55,760
which is still going as far as I know. I thought that was awesome too when I saw that. Bankless Academy.

232
00:20:55,760 --> 00:21:04,560
The Academy is great. Very intuitive product. Really cool. So what would you say the purpose is now

233
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:09,200
that you can articulate for BF DOW that's been agreed upon or in the works?

234
00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:17,120
It's less of an onboarding focus this time. It's more of vibing and thriving within these

235
00:21:17,120 --> 00:21:22,240
decentralized systems. If you're into this space, if these are things that connect with you,

236
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:29,680
we want you to come and explore tools with us. It's a little bit less directed and more of a vague

237
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:38,000
welcoming purpose. I can read you the one that we decided on if you like. I just grabbed it.

238
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:44,000
It's to build an on-chain community of change makers focused on vibing, thriving, and exploring

239
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:54,400
decentralized systems. Thank you. Vibing, thriving, and what was the last part? Exploring.

240
00:21:54,400 --> 00:22:03,440
Exploring. To build an on-chain community of change makers focused on vibing, thriving, and exploring

241
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:12,000
decentralized systems. But Rowan, you're going to speak then. Sorry I interrupted you.

242
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:20,640
No, that's perfect. I think it's important that we just had it verbatim for clarity. But what I was

243
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:30,480
going to say is, I think we realized that we don't need to recreate the educational components that

244
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:38,400
already exist. There are on-rems to crypto and if those on-rems want to succeed, they will build

245
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:43,040
educational components around them or as part of their use. So we don't need to rebuild those

246
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:51,840
things and we also don't necessarily need to fill in the gaps where there are components of

247
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:59,840
information or education that are missing. I think what we realized is, especially with the people who

248
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:10,720
have sort of stuck around since we transitioned, since we began our transition, and I'd be interested

249
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:19,520
to hear what Z-Fi and True have to say, but for me it has been sort of the realization that we are

250
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:26,160
as much a community as anything else and we don't necessarily need to define ourselves around a

251
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:34,400
product in order to exist. It's easier for sure to do that. Like if you have a bankless podcast

252
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:40,880
and a bank token, something that exists already that has some tangible traction in the space,

253
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:48,320
it's a lot easier for sure, but it's not necessary. So what Z-Fi was saying before is,

254
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:55,840
I think we're a little bit less concretely defined by intention and it opens things up

255
00:23:55,840 --> 00:24:04,240
a little bit more. And as we're speaking, the term sandbox actually is a good one. Not that we're

256
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:11,760
going to try and take that from you, but it's funny that we're on Lenzer's podcast, from sandbox

257
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:18,320
down we're basically talking about creating more or less a sandbox for a community to vibe and

258
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:31,600
thrive. Yeah, that did not escape me. But I think it sounds like you're very much in the business of

259
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:39,680
staying nimble almost. It's staying open and flexible to where maybe a mission will develop

260
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:45,840
in the future, maybe not, but the whole vibing, thriving, and exploring, I can definitely see

261
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:52,240
that start to take hold on what you've been articulating. For your role specifically,

262
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:57,600
what does the transition council do? What would you say you do here?

263
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:06,480
I love this question. All right, so the community tasked us or wanted to see a group of people

264
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:14,320
take the reins on this reorganization direction, and we struggled to do it all individually,

265
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:20,400
and even once the TC, once the transition council was formed, part of what we started with was

266
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:27,600
getting feedback from the community, putting surveys on the forum to determine what are our

267
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:32,240
collective values, where are our overlaps, what purposes would you like to see this organization

268
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:40,240
achieve or work toward? And the biggest thing that I noticed up front, one, that it was going to be

269
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:45,120
a hard lift, but two, is that everybody just wanted to be together. We all knew that we wanted to be

270
00:25:45,120 --> 00:25:49,520
together doing a thing, and we're all looking at each other like, all right, what thing are we

271
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:54,480
supposed to do? So the people in the community almost came first. Like Rowan was saying, those

272
00:25:54,480 --> 00:26:00,640
who have stuck around this long from bankless, even as the DAO has kind of declined over the years,

273
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:05,840
the people who are still left are very passionate, and we've gotten to know each other, and we like

274
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:12,000
working with each other, and that's why we want to reboot with this great foundation of people and

275
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,760
skills that we have, and form a new organization in a new direction.

276
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:23,760
Yeah, there was definitely a bit of an identity crisis that took place. Again, because if you

277
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:32,640
don't have a product or an idea to which you can adhere as a community and build around, then

278
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:37,760
it's harder, it's much, much harder to define what you're doing, and I think we really struggled

279
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:44,400
with that. So the creation of the Transition Council was to consolidate effort and authority

280
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:49,120
to some extent, to start moving these things through, because, you know, maybe we'll touch on

281
00:26:49,120 --> 00:26:55,920
it a little bit later in the episode, but I had a quick look at the governance structure of Sandbox

282
00:26:55,920 --> 00:27:01,280
DAO, and I mean, every DAO, every community has their governance structure, and I think

283
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:08,640
every community has their governance structure, but when you have this identity crisis like

284
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:19,680
we did as a community, I think we lost Z-Fi. Oh, it's back. Welcome back. But yeah, I guess,

285
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:27,360
you know, when we had this identity crisis, and we, you know, we were struggling to figure out,

286
00:27:27,360 --> 00:27:31,760
first of all, what to do and then how to do it, we recognized that there were limitations to our

287
00:27:31,760 --> 00:27:36,160
governance structure and, you know, the procedures and operations that we had in place.

288
00:27:37,120 --> 00:27:42,640
So we had to change them, but the existing governance structure was, you know, kind of

289
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:49,200
arduous, you know, like there was a lot of discussion, and I think in a good way, you know,

290
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,600
like we want to get, it's decentralized, so we want to get people's input before, you know,

291
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:59,360
we charge ahead and, you know, implement things and, you know, pray that we don't break things.

292
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:06,000
But that meant that there was a lot of inertia in the community. So someone had to

293
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:16,000
take this problem of one, what are we doing now? Who are we collectively? And then how do we move

294
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:20,960
forward? How do we do this thing that I don't even know what we're doing with the existing

295
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:28,960
governance processes that need to change? It was just this bag of a bunch of baggage, you know,

296
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:33,680
from the community, and you couldn't address one thing without addressing a whole bunch of other

297
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:39,600
things. So I think we realized that, you know, we need some kind of consolidated effort and authority

298
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:44,560
to move things forward, and that's why the Transition Council was created. So we're focusing on,

299
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:50,880
as Zeefai mentioned initially, redefining our mission, vision, and values, getting input from

300
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:55,280
the community. We have got input from the community in terms of what do we want to do? Who are we?

301
00:28:55,280 --> 00:29:05,440
Where do we want to go? And now we're working on a rebrand. So how do we want to sort of convey

302
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:11,440
ourselves to the rest of the space in the world? And then we'll work on, you know, what comes next?

303
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:19,360
So how do we want to structure our membership to this community? How do we want to,

304
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:26,800
what changes and how do we want to implement governance structure? Learning from our

305
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:33,280
past. And I don't, I'm careful not to say mistakes, because I don't think they are mistakes

306
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:39,040
necessarily, but we do have to take into account where we were and how we got here.

307
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,640
Learning opportunities. Always, always.

308
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:44,400
True Cat, what about you?

309
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:48,880
I'm curious, Zeefai or True, do you guys have anything to add to those thoughts?

310
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:56,960
I just wanted to add that, yeah, I mean, you're right to say there was a period of inertia and

311
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,480
you skipped over it, Lanza, when you said like that happened in November with the

312
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,920
Arbitrum proposal, and then six months later, the Transition Council was formed. But during that

313
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:12,080
six months, there was, yeah, definitely a period of identity crisis, I guess you could call it. I was

314
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:17,680
a big part of Bankless Publishing, which we almost immediately stopped using the name Bankless,

315
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:26,560
and that publishing and therefore kind of shut down that whole stream of activity. And, you know,

316
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:33,440
it was, it was a period where we just really needed to figure out what we wanted and, and

317
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:38,720
the fact that we came, you know, we stayed together during community calls during that entire time,

318
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:45,680
and people were just able to kind of share what it was that they valued. It was a good period,

319
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:51,360
and I'm glad I was part of it. But we did need at some point to take the reins and actually move

320
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:56,800
things forward, because we could still be just talking about what we might become if we hadn't,

321
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:02,240
as a community, decided that we would just consolidate down to the point where we were

322
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:07,360
going to consolidate down into a group of people who would, were willing to commit to the time it

323
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:15,120
took. So we had to, as Zeefai mentioned, you know, do some cleanup of things that no longer were,

324
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,840
you know, up to date, and then also kind of try to move us forward and make decisions

325
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,040
about the future. And we just recently, even, you know, after several months of activity in the

326
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:31,200
transaction, in the Transition Council, we, we held a snapshot vote to actually ratify that

327
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:35,760
making authority because we, you know, ran into some issues around do we actually have

328
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:41,680
the right to make decisions for this community going forward, and it turns out we do.

329
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:46,400
I saw that. I saw that. That's what I was trying to join the DAL. Like, I need to,

330
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:50,720
I need to join the DAL so I can vote. And I missed it, and it was all over after that.

331
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:55,520
Right. The other thing that was occurring to me this morning, though, is people always talk about...

332
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:56,160
I'll look forward to it, by the way.

333
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:03,600
Yeah, good, good. People talk about, you know, will the governance or will the system scale up?

334
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:11,760
But I think we also need to be conscious of will it scale back down? And so we found, you know,

335
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:17,760
one of the things with having a small group of people left was how we could actually bring,

336
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:23,920
you know, the decision-making authority back to them, or at least, and even just enable them to

337
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:28,640
have the authority because maybe it was, you know, always set to be a bigger group that was

338
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:33,920
making the decisions. And so, yeah, governance has to scale both ways.

339
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:44,560
Yeah, that's the flexibility you were speaking to earlier. And so was it just the name that you had

340
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:49,120
to... I know there's a spiderweb of activities that have to happen, but was it just the name and that

341
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:56,240
was the impetus behind most of this? I think that was our biggest catalyst. Yeah, we needed to

342
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:01,760
determine if we wanted to continue using the bankless branding. We decided ultimately we did

343
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:06,000
not. And then making that break in the rebranding with all the socials and the accounts.

344
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:14,480
So it wasn't taken from you? You decided to just continue using it?

345
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:20,080
I don't know if that's as clear and I think maybe that depends on who you ask. But yeah,

346
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:29,360
I did come down to the brand and fundamentally you have an LLC, like a company that exists

347
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:36,560
in a jurisdiction, you know, subject to laws and, you know, whatever, everything that comes with

348
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:42,480
that. And then you have a DAO, which is global and permissionless, largely permissionless.

349
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:52,240
And there was, you know, by and large permissionless use of the brand. And I think

350
00:33:52,800 --> 00:34:02,560
Bankless LLC realized that and said, this could be like a big problem for us, specifically for our

351
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:10,560
brand, which they had taken the time to build. And so I totally respect that. There were sort of,

352
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:18,080
you know, there's so much history there that I'm trying to be as objective as possible.

353
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:18,640
Sure. Sure.

354
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:26,160
Right. But, you know, it would be framed as the bankless DAO was created as an experiment,

355
00:34:26,720 --> 00:34:34,720
as a headless brand, as True mentioned previously. But I don't think that anyone really had the

356
00:34:34,720 --> 00:34:41,120
foresight, especially because DAOs were just, you know, coming on the scene and becoming very,

357
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:46,080
very big. Like it was DAO, I don't know what season, DAO summer, you know, people were vibing in

358
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:52,800
DAOs. Very, very exciting. Lots of energy, lots of people getting involved. People weren't thinking

359
00:34:52,800 --> 00:35:01,120
necessarily about the future when there are people all over the world using this brand in ways that

360
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:10,400
maybe the bankless LLC folks weren't aligned with, or maybe that could even get them in trouble.

361
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:15,760
So, you know, they have jobs, their livelihood is attached to this thing that they've built,

362
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,880
this brand that they've built. And all of a sudden people are using it in ways that,

363
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:24,160
you know, it's not about control necessarily, but it's about making sure that it doesn't come back

364
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:29,120
to them in any kind of negative way. So I get that. And then there was discussion about how do we move

365
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:36,400
forward? How do we sort of, I don't know if the word is disambiguate, but, you know, how do we,

366
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:43,120
how do we consolidate what is bankless LLC versus what is bankless DAO? And by that point,

367
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:51,440
bankless DAO had grown so far so fast that, I mean, I'm curious, how's he finding true what you

368
00:35:51,440 --> 00:36:01,360
guys think. But when I looked at the problem of administering use of a brand that had already been

369
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:07,360
used permissionlessly for years, it didn't seem like that was something that you could roll back.

370
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:13,360
And it wasn't at least not very easily. Yeah, I think we did, excuse me, they did give us an

371
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:19,920
option to work forward with some permissioned use of the brand name where we would be given permission

372
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:26,800
by LLC if we wanted to use it. And that was just something that the community, I guess, ultimately

373
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:33,680
didn't want to do. It was a very unfortunate back and forth, but like Rowan said, I see why

374
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:38,960
bankless LLC had to do what they did. And I understand it, I mean, from a legal perspective,

375
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:44,480
they had to reduce their liability. So we just worked with what we had. And unfortunately,

376
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:51,680
that meant we had to basically spin off. What was the thing that you're able to say that was done?

377
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:59,280
Oh, the thing that was like the catalyst for HQ. I understand like the arbitrable proposal,

378
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:05,040
but I mean, the action that was taken that then became the catalyst. If it wasn't like you didn't

379
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:12,640
get a letter saying thou shalt not use this anymore, what was it that led to your voluntary,

380
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:19,760
involuntary decision to stop the transition? I don't know that I can point to a specific example.

381
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,760
There was some communication back and forth between HQ and the DAO, but it was kind of like

382
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:28,160
it was through a couple of individuals who were transmitting the information.

383
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:33,680
Okay, so this was a dialogue saying, hey, this is an issue for us. Can you please help us find a

384
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:42,800
solution? And through a series of conversations, hard and otherwise, the DAO came to the conclusion

385
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:48,080
that we want to change to BFDAO. And then the transition council came after that.

386
00:37:48,720 --> 00:37:54,560
Look, I'll say it. I'll say it. There was a lot of, there was a storm on Twitter.

387
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:55,440
Oh, they're both laughing.

388
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,040
I watched the podcast episode and I read through all those tweets and oh my gosh.

389
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:07,680
Yes, it was absolutely horrible for David and Ryan to have to deal with that on their Thanksgiving.

390
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:15,440
I fully appreciate that they were absolutely blindsided by it. But their response was to

391
00:38:16,240 --> 00:38:23,040
very much push the DAO to arm's length and try to disassociate from it as much as they could.

392
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,120
In that moment, that was their response. And so it became very clear to the community that that

393
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,280
was actually how they felt about the DAO. Okay, that's how I feel about it.

394
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:34,480
Yeah, no, 100% back there. I'd say that's accurate.

395
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,720
And so, you know, we didn't feel we could go forward knowing that.

396
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,960
I'm speaking for myself, not for the DAO, but that's how I see it.

397
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:48,720
Again, not to, that doesn't mean I don't understand their response. They were absolutely

398
00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:53,520
blindsided. But I think, you know, it became evident that actually there was not going to be

399
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:54,720
that support going forward.

400
00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:58,320
The reflex response was, oh, no, this isn't our problem.

401
00:38:58,320 --> 00:38:58,800
Yeah.

402
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,280
Okay, so that's not from that angle.

403
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,920
Yeah, I see. So the vacuum was created.

404
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:09,840
Kind of a distance.

405
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,720
A distance with no direction.

406
00:39:12,720 --> 00:39:16,320
They weren't necessarily fulfilling leadership. That's right. He did say that they weren't

407
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,840
necessarily fulfilling a lot of leadership roles. And that's why they didn't really know about it.

408
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:24,560
Never were. And I don't think ever intended to. They weren't really a leadership position in the

409
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:25,120
DAO.

410
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:33,840
No. I think they intentionally, I mean, they held, as part of the Genesis team of the DAO,

411
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,160
they held a very large number of tokens.

412
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:42,480
And as a result, they excluded themselves from, you know, any decision-making and governance

413
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:53,840
actions within the DAO. It was, you know, I think 100%. And that's why, so I mean, there is sort of

414
00:39:53,840 --> 00:40:03,120
like intent and outcome or impact, right? And I think the intent was honest and, you know, innocent

415
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:10,240
and a DAO was created with the intent to include as many people as possible, because this was,

416
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:14,880
you know, one of the fastest ways to scale communities and ideas.

417
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:23,200
But again, back to that foresight of how do we, you know, does permission-less-ness actually work

418
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:32,880
in this environment? And if it doesn't, how do we sort of retain control on the aspects of brand and

419
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:41,680
identity that we need to so that, you know, our, and I'm speaking on sort of, I'm trying to imagine

420
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:47,280
what it was like for David and Ryan, especially during that Twitter storm where they were like,

421
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:54,720
oh, wow, all of a sudden this is way, way bigger and maybe a lot worse in some aspects than we

422
00:40:54,720 --> 00:41:02,160
realized. And for sure, I get it. You want to, you want to disassociate from the DAO. And a lot of

423
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:11,440
what they said was true for sure. But I think what, what maybe they forgot and, you know,

424
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:18,160
perhaps to this day haven't really acknowledged is the social contracts that exist or that existed

425
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:26,080
when they created the DAO, it was always, I think from their perspective, considered an experiment,

426
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:33,040
but there were real people around the world building on the bankless brand.

427
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:40,240
So there was a tremendous benefit to the bankless brand from the, like, by virtue of the existence

428
00:41:40,240 --> 00:41:47,200
of the DAO. The Twitter storm, I think highlighted the flip side of that. Right. So like you have

429
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:52,000
tremendous benefit, but you also have the potential to be, you know,

430
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,800
Perseverance, like serious damage to your brand if it's not used properly.

431
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:04,320
So when, so when they disassociated themselves, there were people in the community who were,

432
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:08,960
you know, our feelings were hurt for one, definitely, because this is something we'd invested in

433
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:18,400
for a very long time. But people were also financially hurt because, right, because this

434
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:25,680
had an impact on the bankless token or the bank token, I should say. And, you know, we can,

435
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:31,200
there's, that is a rabbit hole into itself, but I think, you know, there's a lot of nuance to this.

436
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:39,280
And again, trying to be as objective as possible, recognizing that, that there are sort of two sides,

437
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:43,040
two, two interested sides in this problem.

438
00:42:44,240 --> 00:42:51,200
So bankless, the public backlash to our return DAO proposal led to bankless HQ distancing itself

439
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:58,320
from the bankless DAO, which led to community, DAO community dialogue about how to proceed

440
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:03,760
and that's kind of where the theory of permissionless experiment meant the reality

441
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:08,800
of permissionless experiment. And out of that came the decision to transition.

442
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:16,240
Am I close? Yeah, yeah, I would say that's a good summary. And, you know, transition, I would say,

443
00:43:16,240 --> 00:43:23,120
at that point, really just meant move away from the use of, or association with the bankless brand.

444
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:30,240
But the transition itself, you know, took, I mean, it's ongoing, right? Like the transition

445
00:43:30,240 --> 00:43:38,000
council was created six months after that event and it's ongoing now. So yeah, it was,

446
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:43,600
we're talking about catalyst and sort of the events that followed.

447
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:49,920
That is a tough problem. Like you are facing the sort of tough problems that,

448
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:56,720
let's call it the real world, right? IRL, that major conglomerates and corporations have to face

449
00:43:56,720 --> 00:44:04,240
with mergers and all sorts of breaking aparts. And I mean, you're talking about how do you unwind

450
00:44:04,240 --> 00:44:12,640
corporations' portfolio and just really, really tough legal problems that qualified experts spend

451
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:19,840
full time doing. And here you have dedicated, passionate community members who are trying to

452
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:24,880
figure it out just like the rest of us. That's tough. Oh my gosh, that's tough.

453
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:28,480
It's even more complicated than that.

454
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:34,240
Thinking about like dismantling a business, for example, because it's also a social group. It's a

455
00:44:34,240 --> 00:44:39,680
society, a little, you know, it's a mini society in a way too. So you're managing the organizational

456
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,320
structure as well as the social structure. It's a lot to juggle.

457
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:52,160
How to disassociate a nation from... Yeah, wow. So the government structure for BDAO versus BFDAO,

458
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:59,760
what I heard the term guilds, BDAO was described as a conglomerate of DAOs. I wasn't quite sure

459
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:07,600
what to make of that. Well, the old structure was mostly guilds, departments, and projects.

460
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:14,720
But we pretty much have no structure at this point. Everything consolidated just into basically DAO

461
00:45:14,720 --> 00:45:20,400
general and the government structure. And so, you know, I think that's the way to do it.

462
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:25,200
We need to basically DAO general as we were working through this transition. So the black flag

463
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:28,720
DAO structure will be different. Membership structure will be different. But that's what

464
00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:35,120
we're working on now. Okay, guilds, departments, and projects now is a BFDAO general.

465
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:44,880
Yep. And those were consolidated because they were, you know, they were largely DAO units that were

466
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:53,120
integrated to fulfill the purpose, you know, the mission and vision of the DAO. And with that

467
00:45:53,120 --> 00:46:02,000
changing, their continued existence didn't make sense. So just, you know, very quickly, you talked

468
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:11,680
about like, I can't remember how you said it, but sort of like a loosely connected network of DAOs.

469
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:17,200
I think a conglomerate of DAOs. I think I took that quote from either David or Ryan. I think one

470
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:25,280
of them said that. Yeah. And I think that to some extent, makes sense. But it really depends on how

471
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:34,640
you define DAO. I mean, like the flagship was bankless DAO. And then, you know, if the Discord

472
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:40,480
server got, you know, too full, then, or it was hard. I mean, you should have seen the Discord

473
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:46,960
server at the time. It was huge. Like I've never seen a Discord server like that. And yeah. And so

474
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:53,760
if a project or a DAO unit got big enough, they would just split off and create their own Discord

475
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:59,680
server because it was easier to navigate. So I think people started to think, oh, well, maybe

476
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:07,200
that's another DAO. Like maybe that's a sub-DAO. You know, but this is all terminology. And I don't

477
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:14,560
know that it is important in the discussion. It's just kind of the way people were sense-making

478
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:22,400
the structure of this thing, this behemoth of a DAO that existed. Yeah. I've listened to

479
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:33,520
the 52 Pickup episode with you, Z-Fy, Rowan, and Drost. And I think at the time I couldn't

480
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:38,400
figure out who is who, by the way, because all I could hear were your voices. So I was like,

481
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:47,120
question mark said this, question mark said that. But at 42 minutes in, one of you noted creating a

482
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:53,040
working group. Excuse me. Was it? There we go. At 52 minutes in, one of you noted that when you

483
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:57,840
created working groups, those working groups created their own Discords and that ended up being a

484
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:03,680
double-edged sword. And what I think I inferred from that was that they created their own little

485
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:10,240
subculture or and they somehow were separated from the main unit just like happens in real life.

486
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:15,440
And then they create their own identity, which may have been conflicting with what you're going

487
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:20,960
after. I think double-edged swords probably a great way to put it. Yes, it allowed us to keep

488
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:26,000
the organization and the navigation a little bit more manageable, but it also resulted in projects

489
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,400
and departments sometimes just becoming their own little things and all these different groups

490
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:38,240
running as disconnected silos. We expanded very quickly. Yeah. Coordination failure, right? Like

491
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:46,160
it just, it was a way for, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Moloch. I've heard of it.

492
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:51,600
Yeah. I just took my DAO certification course with blockchain council and thank you very much.

493
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:56,560
And Moloch was one of the things that kept mentioning. It was kind of interesting. So

494
00:48:56,560 --> 00:49:02,080
people characterize Moloch as the God of coordination failure. So as we created

495
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:12,160
more Discords and sort of we fractured the DAO out of necessity, out of an attempt to like sense-make

496
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:20,320
and be able to navigate the DAO. As Zeefi said, the result was siloing and a breakdown of

497
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:26,400
communication and ultimately coordination failures that were navigable. But it's,

498
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:33,760
you know, I think that's what was being referred to. And was, you can say, you can just say no to this

499
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:41,760
question. Did that lead to the proposal and Arbitrum going awry in a way?

500
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:54,720
No. If anything, that proposal was an illustration of the fact that all of those units were still

501
00:49:54,720 --> 00:50:01,280
very capable of working together. In fact, we had a campaign just prior to that for optimism, which

502
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:10,640
was the predecessor almost to the Arbitrum proposal was various media producers within the DAO

503
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:18,240
working together to produce content. And that was a successful campaign and carried out, you know,

504
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:25,920
across all of the international media nodes and also, you know, producing content in,

505
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:32,800
you know, a number of different languages, including English. So if anything, that was

506
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,960
an illustration that we were still very able to work together and communicate together.

507
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:42,160
What happened with the Arbitrum proposal was that people on Twitter got hold of it. It was for quite

508
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:50,320
a lot of arb and decided that they would take their trolling out on that particular aspect of it and

509
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:56,800
blame David and Ryan, which David and Ryan had nothing to do with it. But yeah, it wasn't that

510
00:50:56,800 --> 00:51:01,760
we weren't able to work successfully together. It was just that it became very sprawling and big and

511
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:09,280
I guess in a way, because we were still, all of those groups were still voting on DAO things.

512
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:16,560
You know, if you have structures in place or you don't, there are still factions that form.

513
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:21,280
And I guess some of those groups perhaps became factions and it became a little bit more difficult

514
00:51:22,240 --> 00:51:28,240
to look at proposals as a group of individuals that became maybe a group of groups.

515
00:51:28,240 --> 00:51:35,600
So got it. Okay. Yeah. And I read through the tweets and like, oh my gosh, this is what the

516
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:42,480
Twitter mob looks like. And y'all are getting the full end of it. Like, holy smokes. I mean,

517
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:49,600
it's reasonable to me. Everything seems fine. It wasn't an uninformed mob. Like Drew said,

518
00:51:49,600 --> 00:52:00,720
it was, it was just, I mean, yeah, it was, it was people taking issue for the sake of taking issue

519
00:52:00,720 --> 00:52:08,720
with something, you know, like it was, you know, they looked at it at a, at a situation and they

520
00:52:08,720 --> 00:52:14,800
said, this could be construed in this very negative way. I'm going to run with it. Let's do it. Yeah.

521
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:19,840
Let's do it. You know, like I don't really care what the reality is. I'm just going to crap all

522
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:27,360
over these guys because I can. It's the internet. So 10 minutes earlier in the episode, again,

523
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:32,640
question mark said that creating a working group was one of the most effective things in a doubt.

524
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:40,320
I think Z-Fi, it might've been your voice. So was it the most effective thing because as,

525
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:46,240
as true as you're saying, or as Z-Fi, you were just saying that it kept things manageable

526
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,360
and how true you were saying that that proposal was a demonstration that you could still work

527
00:52:51,360 --> 00:53:00,960
together. So it still worked in the end. Am I close? Yeah. I mean, working groups just allowed

528
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:06,240
people, you know, with similar interests and ideas to come together and actually make something

529
00:53:06,240 --> 00:53:12,640
happen in a smaller group than, you know, because of that permissionless nature, if they needed

530
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:17,520
funding, obviously that went to the main Dow, but people could really just create things and,

531
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:25,600
and work on things without needing that kind of permission. So that's how we managed to spin up

532
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:33,600
newsletters and podcasts and things across the whole Dow. It was really just based on that working

533
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:39,280
group structure of like like-minded people going, yeah, let's do that. You know, got it. Okay.

534
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:45,040
Yeah. That may have been a drost comment. That sounds like it might've been a drost comment.

535
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:51,200
Oh, was it? Okay. So, so sorry, drost. I was trying very hard to keep track of who is who.

536
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:57,360
Yeah. That's really so much you can do with audio. Yeah. It's good. It's good to know that. I mean,

537
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:05,360
yeah. I think, I think probably also what, you know, it's, it's what True was saying in, in that

538
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:13,360
if you have a large group of people in, in a Dow, not everybody is going to be interested in doing

539
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:19,360
the same thing all the time. So if I'm interested in writing, I'm going to get together with other

540
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:24,640
people who are interested in writing. I'm going to secure the necessary permissions and funding

541
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:31,840
to produce something. And we're going to go and work on it over there. And, you know, the rest of

542
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:37,120
the Dow has given the green light for this group to work on this thing. So they don't need to be

543
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:42,800
involved anymore because the working group has been created rather than having the entire community

544
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:49,120
weigh on, weigh in on every aspect of it, which really, really slows things down. So working groups

545
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:55,920
are, I would say one thing that we've learned as a fundamental component of getting things done in

546
00:54:55,920 --> 00:55:04,800
a Dow, they're, they can be super useful, very nimble, and yeah, very action oriented. True,

547
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:11,760
would, would you say that I've captured kind of what you were saying more or less accurately?

548
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,400
Very much. As usual, far more articulate.

549
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:15,920
Well, I don't know about that.

550
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:19,440
It's that fireplace in the background. It makes you very intensive.

551
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:28,560
All right, let's go with some as rapid fire as you all would like or, or not. Your vision in the

552
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:36,240
next six to 12 months for Blackfag Dow, where do you see it going?

553
00:55:36,240 --> 00:55:46,880
Wow, hard to say.

554
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:56,560
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think, you know, baby steps, but very intentional towards

555
00:55:56,560 --> 00:56:06,320
a minimum viable product for membership and governance and maybe a token, but these

556
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:16,080
fundamentals sort of structures that a community can utilize to start building. We have a lot of

557
00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:24,160
very passionate people, talented people in the community still, and we just need to create this

558
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:32,800
structure so that we can coordinate effectively and start working together to create whatever it

559
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:39,360
is we're going to create. And maybe that will be, as you said, maybe, you know, it'll be something

560
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:45,920
more specific as, you know, we develop some experience and maybe it won't be, maybe it'll be

561
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:53,920
very much like a sandbox and, you know, it'll be sort of a fertile ground for us to be able to

562
00:56:53,920 --> 00:57:00,720
build a community around for whatever people want to work on and create together. I don't know, but

563
00:57:00,720 --> 00:57:06,560
I think in the, in the short to medium term, that's, that would be my goal. My ideal outcome is

564
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:16,320
like a really, really good minimum viable product balancing that minimalist and viability to, you

565
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:21,040
know, provide the community with, with something that's functional, a governance and, and

566
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:28,400
membership structure to run with. So ultimately, whatever the transition council delivers for our

567
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:34,320
reboot, it won't be the last iteration. It won't be the last thing that we do. We want to be able

568
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:38,960
to deliver something that is workable. That's a good solid foundation. And then why I say it would

569
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:43,280
be difficult for me to guess what it's going to look like six to 12 months out is because ultimately

570
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:47,920
the community will take the reins at that point and they'll be able to determine where we want to

571
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:52,160
go, which tools do we want to use? We want to experiment with that platform or this platform.

572
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:58,080
So it's hard to say like specifics for me, what will look like, but I'd love to see more projects

573
00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:03,920
popping up. I'd love to see that activity coming back. Those, those like organic groups being

574
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:09,760
formed to do a thing that aligns with the mission. We used to have it. And I think a lot of DAOs do

575
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:15,040
have it. And it's just like aligning the passion with the objective. We've got the people just a

576
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:25,360
matter of time. True. I totally agree. I think the most, you know, the thing that sustained us

577
00:58:25,360 --> 00:58:33,680
over the last 12 months and the thing that will sustain us going forward is those conversations

578
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:39,040
that we have, those, you know, and it's not, that doesn't always mean that they're verbal calls,

579
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:44,560
conversations, because obviously we're in every time zone, but certainly just the conversations

580
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:49,600
that we have as a group, whether we're trying to work out, you know, the best way forward in

581
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:58,240
governance or we're jamming about the latest, you know, app or whatever, or just laughing together

582
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:03,120
and listening to some good music at the end of the community call. Those are the things that matter.

583
00:59:03,120 --> 00:59:10,160
And that's why, you know, we've left it fairly broad. And that's what I hope is still really

584
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:16,640
strong in six months time. And that's the thing that will be the basis as CeFi said for those

585
00:59:16,640 --> 00:59:24,560
organic kind of growths to come out and, you know, take us in new directions. Yeah. No,

586
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:32,640
that makes total sense. If you look, if you could look back, as you look back, what would you say

587
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:41,120
in BDAO things that worked well versus, well, I guess BFDAO is not fully online yet. So what's

588
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:49,840
something that worked out well with BDAO? Gosh, we had a lot of wins. We learned a lot of stuff,

589
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:54,720
but even if we learned things that we would maybe say in hindsight were hard or bad,

590
00:59:55,760 --> 01:00:00,960
just the experience of going through all those learning experiences, we have so much information

591
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:07,120
now to build a new organization and a new social structure. The experience, I think,

592
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:11,520
is probably my biggest takeaway. Drew?

593
01:00:15,520 --> 01:00:23,600
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, there was no one thing, I think. It was just what we did well

594
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:26,160
and what will continue to do well is community.

595
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:27,920
Well put. Rowan?

596
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:38,400
Yeah, I mean, people have joined this community and said, you know, this is kind of like

597
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:48,560
the Dowiest of DAOs, if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah, it does. Right. And so, yeah, I would like,

598
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:55,680
I would like to see that. I would like to see us carry that forward. You know, I think that was,

599
01:00:56,160 --> 01:01:00,720
that was probably the biggest win is, is community. And that's why we're focusing on it so much.

600
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:08,080
Because in the absence of a product or a purpose, we still had community, we still had these

601
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:17,200
connections. And we're still a group of people who are still working on it. And so, yeah,

602
01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:25,200
we're a group of people who are engaged and, you know, want to work together to create something.

603
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:32,400
You know, and we're not, I think, in the context, right, in the context of crypto. And,

604
01:01:33,040 --> 01:01:39,920
you know, we're not talking about creating like a factory for teddy bears or something. I mean,

605
01:01:39,920 --> 01:01:42,960
maybe we will do that. But yeah.

606
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:43,920
Your secret heart.

607
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:50,000
Yeah. I want to bring the care bears back. No, I'm just kidding.

608
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:56,960
But it's worth saying too, right, we have, we often talk and we're actually in the transition

609
01:01:56,960 --> 01:02:03,440
council thinking about, you know, how can we also recognise alumni from the Bankless Dow

610
01:02:03,440 --> 01:02:09,280
community. And so, we still have a network of people across Web3 who have gone on to do

611
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:16,240
great things elsewhere in other communities and organisations across Web3 who very much consider

612
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:25,120
themselves alumni of BDOW. And, you know, that has been our strength. We may not have known it at the

613
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:33,360
time, but we are a strong network of people who know what BDOW is like. And you can't kill that.

614
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:39,680
And now that you're in BFDOW, I know it's still very new and emerging. What are things that you

615
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:41,120
see now that's working out well?

616
01:02:47,680 --> 01:02:49,520
Does that need a fair question for me to ask?

617
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:55,200
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the transition council is the first example of things that

618
01:02:55,200 --> 01:02:59,680
are working out well. You know, it is one of those working groups that we were talking about.

619
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:05,840
A small group of people focused on a problem or a set of problems with the initiative to

620
01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:08,080
find those solutions.

621
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:14,240
Okay. Yeah, that's fine.

622
01:03:14,240 --> 01:03:19,520
Yeah. The fact that the community then, you know, gave us a strong resounding, yes,

623
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:26,160
please go ahead and do this. That's the ultimate trust, right, is to put their faith in the six of

624
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:34,480
us to carry this forward and to make changes to the BanklessDOW existing constitution without

625
01:03:36,000 --> 01:03:41,600
necessarily having to vote on every single aspect. And we've put our reputations on the

626
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:47,920
line for that. And we're very, very conscious of the fact that we carry the expectations of

627
01:03:47,920 --> 01:03:49,760
the community through that process.

628
01:03:49,760 --> 01:03:55,520
But with the PM tool like you have on Notion, I don't see any, I think you're going to come out

629
01:03:55,520 --> 01:03:57,040
on top just fine.

630
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:00,640
Yeah, we are trying to be as transparent as possible.

631
01:04:00,640 --> 01:04:05,760
Yeah. And yeah, well, it's accomplished even from a far outsider who didn't even know what

632
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:07,120
Bankless was until recently.

633
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:14,240
Awesome. That's meaningful. And I just want to add like, really, really driving that aspect of

634
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:22,480
community to, you know, I think even in the context of this recent vote, you were worse.

635
01:04:22,800 --> 01:04:29,840
We're always trying to make sure that we have the necessary consensus or consent from the

636
01:04:29,840 --> 01:04:36,160
community to do whatever we need to do. So it's that inclusivity. Now we're not going to be able

637
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:41,600
to satisfy everybody. And I say we more broadly than the transition council, we're a group of

638
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:49,760
people who are trying to build something. And yeah, the transition council is a subset of those, of

639
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:55,600
that community. And the same issue exists. You know, we're trying to ensure that we meet the

640
01:04:55,600 --> 01:05:02,560
expectations of everybody. But we also want to, you know, to the greatest extent possible, make

641
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:06,880
sure that we're hearing from everybody, making sure that, you know, we're not doing something that,

642
01:05:06,880 --> 01:05:11,040
I mean, it's one thing if somebody doesn't like it, but if it's, you know, fundamentally against

643
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:16,400
a value system, then, you know, we're going to, we want to hear from people because people make

644
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:17,200
up the community.

645
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:22,240
Spoken like a good transition council member.

646
01:05:24,800 --> 01:05:26,560
We are being very careful.

647
01:05:26,720 --> 01:05:33,520
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's clear. You're approaching it with caution and wisdom. The sort

648
01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:41,760
of wisdom you learn the hard way sometimes. And sometimes a lesson is what not to do next time.

649
01:05:42,880 --> 01:05:46,880
Sometimes it'd be like that. What would you?

650
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:54,160
I'm also expressing my personal values. So I'm not speaking so much as a politician or a

651
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:58,880
representative of the transition council. But I mean, that's why I'm here. I'm here because of

652
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:07,520
people. I'm not here because of a technology or an app or, you know, to fill my bags. I'm here

653
01:06:07,520 --> 01:06:13,760
because I, because the bankless mission resonated with me initially. And I want to carry that

654
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:21,360
forward somehow. I want to make, I would like to make the world better for individuals. I want to,

655
01:06:21,360 --> 01:06:28,960
you know, I want to decentralize power and authority and I want to empower individuals. So

656
01:06:29,280 --> 01:06:33,120
how do you do that? Well, you don't do that by focusing on an organization over individuals.

657
01:06:33,200 --> 01:06:36,960
You do that by focusing on individuals, focusing on community.

658
01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:47,040
What is something that you all would have done different? If you could.

659
01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:49,680
I'm asking you to Monday morning quarterback yourselves.

660
01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:56,560
I mean, hindsight is 2020, right? Like there's, there are so many things that,

661
01:06:57,280 --> 01:07:04,080
that we could have done differently that would have resulted in perhaps more favorable outcomes.

662
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:08,560
You know, I think

663
01:07:08,560 --> 01:07:14,160
I think, I mean, I'm tempted to say something like, you know, be more real, be more realistic about,

664
01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:19,520
you know, things like emergence, you know, things are just going to work out. You know, we need

665
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:23,200
something then, you know, a group of people would just sort of manifest and take care of it.

666
01:07:24,720 --> 01:07:32,400
Or, you know, I think, you know, I think we need to be more, be more realistic about, you know,

667
01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:38,800
we need something then, you know, a group of people would just sort of manifest and take care of it.

668
01:07:38,800 --> 01:07:46,320
Or, you know, permissionlessness works kind of full stop because I think we've realized that it doesn't

669
01:07:46,320 --> 01:07:59,280
maybe, maybe yet, but those are, I think there are, are ideas or philosophies that the community

670
01:07:59,280 --> 01:08:04,640
espoused in the last iteration of the Tao that were

671
01:08:09,040 --> 01:08:14,400
very idealistic and served us in a lot of ways for sure. I mean,

672
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:21,520
you have to hope, right? We have to, I mean, we, we have to hope that things like this will actually

673
01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:28,320
work out. But I think, you know, we've, we've learned maybe that we do need some, some permissions,

674
01:08:28,320 --> 01:08:36,480
some got it, you know, but that just comes with, you know, maturity and, and wisdom and experience.

675
01:08:38,480 --> 01:08:39,280
Z-Fi?

676
01:08:39,280 --> 01:08:43,280
I think to touch on that and maybe, maybe expand on it a little bit is just,

677
01:08:44,960 --> 01:08:48,000
we also, how do I put words to this?

678
01:08:51,280 --> 01:08:56,240
We tended to focus or favor optimistic voting. So anytime a proposal would go up,

679
01:08:56,240 --> 01:08:59,440
we were excited to try it. We thought, Hey, we're going to support our friends. We'll try this new

680
01:08:59,440 --> 01:09:03,360
thing. Maybe it's a project. We'll fund this project. Maybe it's a new approach. We're going to,

681
01:09:03,360 --> 01:09:07,680
we're going to just say yes and try it, which works. I mean, in a lot of ways, that's good.

682
01:09:07,680 --> 01:09:12,480
It allows you to iterate and try new things very quickly, but the optimistic approach,

683
01:09:12,480 --> 01:09:19,280
especially when it came to funding, is something that probably isn't the best approach. You know,

684
01:09:19,280 --> 01:09:23,760
we, we didn't really look at sustainability, organizational financial sustainability when we

685
01:09:23,760 --> 01:09:28,800
were making these decisions. We just thought, does it sound like a good idea? Sure. Send it.

686
01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:33,520
But a bunch of those collectively made all together without oversight of like

687
01:09:33,520 --> 01:09:35,440
where we're all going together financially.

688
01:09:38,640 --> 01:09:44,400
In my current job, I had to learn the skill set of sustainability and I didn't really understand it

689
01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:50,720
to the degree that I did until I had to do that as my job. I was all about like acquiring things,

690
01:09:50,720 --> 01:09:56,080
flashy things, make, get the coolest stuff. But then there's the hard work of maintaining it,

691
01:09:56,080 --> 01:10:02,560
sustaining it, enhancing it, keeping it there, all that, all that grueling work and sometimes

692
01:10:02,560 --> 01:10:11,760
thankless work. So you would have done that differently is to look at it a little bit more

693
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:18,560
in a sustainable lens. Either encourage voters to or educate voters with more information to be able

694
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:24,080
to make those weighted decisions. Like, yes, it's a good idea, but that cost might not check.

695
01:10:25,120 --> 01:10:28,320
Or to approach things, maybe not from the optimistic by default.

696
01:10:28,880 --> 01:10:29,280
Got it.

697
01:10:29,280 --> 01:10:32,160
We will approach things from the, this doesn't pass unless

698
01:10:33,440 --> 01:10:34,880
everybody supports it kind of thing.

699
01:10:35,680 --> 01:10:36,080
Got it.

700
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:38,080
True. What do you think?

701
01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:42,880
I mean, I think that's really spot on.

702
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:52,240
I think, you know, it's easy as Rowan said in hindsight is 2020, but we definitely

703
01:10:53,760 --> 01:10:59,120
do continually need to keep looking at the implications of the decisions we make.

704
01:11:00,160 --> 01:11:05,520
As again, reflecting this morning that what I like to call the speed of doubt

705
01:11:05,520 --> 01:11:12,480
is something that is, you know, it takes time to get input from everybody who should give

706
01:11:12,480 --> 01:11:19,120
input and then to reflect on that and to hear people's concerns and to really think about the

707
01:11:19,120 --> 01:11:26,480
implications and weigh up the risk, you know, associated with all of those things. And the

708
01:11:26,480 --> 01:11:33,520
need to then balance that with being able to be nimble in a situation where we're not going to

709
01:11:33,520 --> 01:11:40,480
be nimble in a situation where something may go wrong and you need to be able to respond quickly

710
01:11:41,200 --> 01:11:49,120
is, it's a hard thing to be able to grab. And I don't think we necessarily did it wrong, but

711
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:58,800
hand in hand with sustainability goes resilience for me. And so I think we weren't necessarily

712
01:11:58,800 --> 01:12:04,880
thinking, I think we, you know, we talked about sustainability a lot the whole time I was in the

713
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:10,560
DOW and as the bank runway started to shorten, it became more of an issue. But I don't really

714
01:12:10,560 --> 01:12:17,600
think that we spent enough time looking at resilience. And maybe that's why when that

715
01:12:17,600 --> 01:12:23,200
big situation happened, you know, we didn't have the systems in place to be able to just

716
01:12:23,200 --> 01:12:29,920
survive and go forward. It really did require a dismantling. And as Rowan said before,

717
01:12:29,920 --> 01:12:32,400
it probably was always coming.

718
01:12:32,400 --> 01:12:38,400
And do you think through that if you had been a little bit more resilient that you wouldn't have had to dismantle as much?

719
01:12:39,280 --> 01:12:43,360
Well, I think we might have had, it's hard to say, but I think we might have had, you know,

720
01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:48,960
we may have had agreements in place, and we may have had, you know, an understanding of,

721
01:12:48,960 --> 01:12:54,720
better understanding of what the relationship was with Bankless LLC and things like that,

722
01:12:54,720 --> 01:13:00,480
that probably, you know, might have allowed us to kind of scaffold a way through. But as it was,

723
01:13:00,480 --> 01:13:04,800
we were kind of operating on hope. A lot of the time.

724
01:13:04,800 --> 01:13:05,520
Got it.

725
01:13:05,520 --> 01:13:08,720
A hope and a belief and a social contract.

726
01:13:08,720 --> 01:13:09,760
Got it.

727
01:13:09,760 --> 01:13:16,640
You know, those things are wonderful, but then possibly not the best thing with tools for resilience.

728
01:13:16,640 --> 01:13:21,760
And one of my old supervisors used to say, hope is not a strategy.

729
01:13:22,640 --> 01:13:23,200
Absolutely.

730
01:13:24,480 --> 01:13:24,980
Got it.

731
01:13:28,400 --> 01:13:31,360
I do have to go, but it's been a great pleasure.

732
01:13:31,360 --> 01:13:33,680
Thank you, True. Thank you so much for your time.

733
01:13:33,680 --> 01:13:34,180
Really fun.

734
01:13:35,680 --> 01:13:42,320
Dear guys, I just listened to that Making Bank episode this morning, and I just want to say,

735
01:13:42,320 --> 01:13:49,040
I'm so proud to work with both of you. I thought, I listened to it on 1.75 speed,

736
01:13:49,040 --> 01:13:56,240
because I know that all three of you are not afraid of a thoughtful pause. But I really,

737
01:13:56,240 --> 01:14:01,600
I really enjoyed listening to it, and I was really proud to be on the team with you.

738
01:14:02,560 --> 01:14:03,360
It's very kind of you.

739
01:14:03,360 --> 01:14:03,860
It's a pleasure.

740
01:14:04,880 --> 01:14:06,960
True. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

741
01:14:06,960 --> 01:14:07,460
See you later.

742
01:14:07,460 --> 01:14:17,140
I have to run as well. I will not leave with such eloquence, but I just want to say,

743
01:14:17,140 --> 01:14:21,780
thank you very much, Lenzer, for having us. I guess before I do leave,

744
01:14:21,780 --> 01:14:23,700
do you want, is there anything else you wanted to ask?

745
01:14:28,420 --> 01:14:34,580
I think we got through, all my windows are jacked up right now, but I'm, we're going to keep going.

746
01:14:34,580 --> 01:14:35,080
We're good.

747
01:14:35,080 --> 01:14:41,800
But I think the main thing I wanted to know was, so I figured out, I think I know what the answer

748
01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:51,160
is to the best practices. And on my third discussion question was, one of you said,

749
01:14:51,160 --> 01:14:57,000
question Mark said, what was lacking was distinction between the financial relationship

750
01:14:57,000 --> 01:15:03,880
and the brand relationship. Bankless Media LLC believed the brand was being used improperly and

751
01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:10,360
saw Bankless DAO as an experiment. And I noted that a similar overlap right now exists with

752
01:15:10,360 --> 01:15:16,600
the Sandbox DAO and the Sandbox game. And I wanted to ask what sort of landmines should we avoid?

753
01:15:19,240 --> 01:15:25,960
Well, I think, I think really very, very, very clearly establish expectations. Right? I mean,

754
01:15:25,960 --> 01:15:34,280
I think going into the creation of Bankless DAO, Bankless LLC saw it as an experiment,

755
01:15:34,280 --> 01:15:41,400
but the people who are contributors to Bankless DAO didn't have the same idea. You know, it was,

756
01:15:43,560 --> 01:15:51,320
I think something that, it was something that Bankless LLC could detach themselves from

757
01:15:51,320 --> 01:15:57,880
fairly, I think fairly readily given the DAO didn't have any kind of legal framework. But

758
01:16:01,320 --> 01:16:09,240
yeah, I think, I think going into any relationship between a DAO and, you know, a legal entity

759
01:16:10,200 --> 01:16:18,200
is really, really important. And, you know, what, maybe if Bankless DAO had some kind of legal

760
01:16:18,200 --> 01:16:25,160
footprint in the U.S., it might've been different. There was, right? Like there was, it could have

761
01:16:25,160 --> 01:16:31,000
been messy, right? Different legal courses might've existed, whereas, okay, all right,

762
01:16:31,000 --> 01:16:37,240
I'm picking up what you're putting down now. Yeah. Yeah. So, but that to me is, is an aspect of,

763
01:16:38,280 --> 01:16:44,600
of clarifying expectations. I'm not recommending that Sandbox DAO seeks some kind of legal

764
01:16:44,600 --> 01:16:49,560
footprint in the U.S. because there are advantages and tremendous disadvantages to that, right? And

765
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:56,760
it puts, it puts contributors at a lot of risk. So, you know, I would just say,

766
01:16:57,960 --> 01:17:03,960
clarify those expectations, both in terms of the way that the, the DAO is, is interacting with,

767
01:17:05,080 --> 01:17:12,760
you know, the, the LLC and what that means and what it means in the future, like what, what plans

768
01:17:12,760 --> 01:17:22,360
exist for the DAO in the future and how the, the LLC, you know, how the, how the LLC sees

769
01:17:23,080 --> 01:17:30,760
the purpose of the DAO sort of evolving over time. And to me, you know, that I, as I mentioned,

770
01:17:31,880 --> 01:17:37,960
when we were jamming before the start of the episode, there seems to be like a three,

771
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:46,520
a three phase roadmap for, you know, decentralizing the, the governance of, of, and the ownership

772
01:17:46,520 --> 01:17:55,640
perhaps of the game to the DAO. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's something that to me would be very

773
01:17:55,640 --> 01:18:03,800
complicated and, and perhaps very messy over time. But it's just maintaining that communication and

774
01:18:03,800 --> 01:18:10,280
ensuring those expectations are very clearly communicated. It's like, it's any, I mean,

775
01:18:10,280 --> 01:18:17,160
it comes, I think about it and I'm like, I get what you mean. Communication, right? Like communication,

776
01:18:17,160 --> 01:18:24,840
acting with honesty and integrity and communicating your beliefs and your intentions.

777
01:18:27,560 --> 01:18:30,680
Thanks, Roman. Yeah. So it's a pleasure speaking with you.

778
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:35,080
I will, I will leave you with that. Thanks for the opportunity to chat,

779
01:18:35,080 --> 01:18:40,280
Lancer. It was, it was a great time. Yeah. As he rides off into the sunset.

780
01:18:41,400 --> 01:18:44,360
That sunset here in my, in my GME background.

781
01:18:45,720 --> 01:18:52,040
Jeff, I had, I had a couple more, but at this point, if you have to go as well, I think,

782
01:18:52,600 --> 01:18:58,680
think we got to a good place. Good. I think that's probably a good idea. I've got a cat.

783
01:18:58,680 --> 01:19:03,560
I've been fighting here for the last 15, 20 minutes. She's great, but boy, is she hungry.

784
01:19:03,560 --> 01:19:08,920
So I'm 30 minutes past dinner time and she's letting me know. It makes sense. Every time I

785
01:19:08,920 --> 01:19:16,440
say, I go, whoop, whoop. She is relentless. Hey, you, you all were super flexible and, and very

786
01:19:16,440 --> 01:19:25,240
easy to, to, I say work with, but schedule around and, and get this set up. This was fabulous. And

787
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:30,840
I learned a lot talking with you all and just watching, looking at that notion site, the way,

788
01:19:30,840 --> 01:19:37,480
the, the way it was, it was planned out and it is planned out watching the two episodes and

789
01:19:37,480 --> 01:19:44,200
juxtaposing them together like that. And then hearing the wisdom of things that, that you did

790
01:19:44,200 --> 01:19:49,080
well, things that you wish you had paid a little bit more attention to. And then some landmines

791
01:19:49,080 --> 01:19:55,880
that our own Dow could potentially look at to make sure that, that it's not as an intense problem for

792
01:19:55,880 --> 01:20:03,800
us. If that ever happens, the, that was really valuable. Thank you so much for sharing, sharing

793
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:09,320
your pains and troubles and, and the whole. We've had a lot of them might as well share the wealth,

794
01:20:09,320 --> 01:20:14,040
right? Yeah. Well, is there anything that you want to ask me or anything that you want to end with

795
01:20:14,040 --> 01:20:20,280
and tell, tell everyone. Nothing on my mind, but thank you so much for giving us this opportunity

796
01:20:20,280 --> 01:20:25,320
to tell our story. And maybe we can come back with a part two after we get a good launch on the black

797
01:20:25,320 --> 01:20:31,960
flag. I'd love to, I'd love to check back in and see how, how everything happens on the, on the flip

798
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:38,600
side. Sounds good. We'll stay in touch. All right. All right, everyone. This was a Sandel podcast

799
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:47,080
Sandel podcast number 44. Can't believe we're at 44 already, but we spoke today with True Cat,

800
01:20:47,080 --> 01:20:54,440
Z-Fi and Rowan from Anklas Dow now called Black Flag Dow as they transition out of a really,

801
01:20:54,440 --> 01:21:02,920
really tough, tough thing on both sides to how do you, how do you separate what was your identity,

802
01:21:02,920 --> 01:21:08,360
your name to what your new identity is going to be? What, what does it look like? Everything

803
01:21:08,360 --> 01:21:15,320
from governance to your name to the, even if the community image change and the tough problems

804
01:21:15,320 --> 01:21:19,960
that they are, the tough solutions that they're, they're coming up with in order to come out better

805
01:21:19,960 --> 01:21:26,200
on the other side to what would you say vibe, thrive and explore? You got it. Thank you, Z-Fi.

806
01:21:26,200 --> 01:21:39,080
Appreciate your time. Thanks, Lenzer. All right. Bye everybody.