Onboarding in Web3: Education, Engagement, and Digital Success

Unlock the secrets of Web3 technology and digital domains in this captivating episode of Tech Talk! I'm Wen Airdrop, your guide on this journey, joined by the insightful Collector and JP. Together, we emphasize the critical role of both online and face-to-face onboarding experiences in fostering genuine relationships and enhancing education in the Web3 realm. Tune in to discover how meaningful interactions and strategic collaborations can drive innovation and growth, all while understanding the power of community in this ever-evolving sector.

Get ready to uncover the fascinating world of digital domains, including the rare and valuable single emoji ENS domains. We break down the intriguing sale of the hypnotized face emoji domain for a whopping 10.55 ETH and discuss the strategies and legalities behind securing these coveted digital assets. Plus, hear about an exciting initiative sponsored by VrbsDAO—monthly in-person meetups in San Antonio that aim to onboard and educate newcomers to Web3 in a friendly, non-technical setting.

Explore the nuts and bolts of effective Web3 outreach and education with us. From inspiring encounters with legendary musicians like Robert Trujillo of Metallica and Armand Sabal-Lecco to the importance of securing digital identities before diving into cryptocurrencies or NFTs, we cover it all. Learn about practical examples of incentivizing education and community engagement, such as an upcoming coffee and crypto mixer that offers free incentives to encourage participation. Don’t miss out on these valuable insights and real-world applications designed to make Web3 technology accessible and beneficial for everyone.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Web3 Domain Education and Networking
• 12:56 Expanding Opportunities in Web3 Domains
• 18:21 Real People Onboarding in Web3
• 34:30 Enhancing Web3 Domain Education and Networking
• 47:59 Incentivizing Education and Cross-Promotion
• 1:01:28 Web3 ID Chatbot and Domain Education

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

no-transcript. We'll get started in just a moment as you guys are coming into the space. If you guys could please do me a favor and like and retweet. Also posted a couple things at the top for anybody who's listening live, you can follow along and reference those things. But yeah, we'll get started in just a moment, all right. All right, we are going to go ahead and get started again. Thank you for everyone who was able to listen live for taking the time on this Wednesday.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Welcome to our Tech Talk podcast. This is a live discussion that I record weekly on X where we highlight news, innovation, education, alpha and business development in the Web3 technology and digital identity space. I am your host, wynn Airdrop, and I am the founder of iHeart Domains. We aim to be your number one resource for unbiased Web3, blockchain and domain education. With over 100 Tech Talk episodes and YouTube videos produced and archived over the past two years, you are able to search our entire content archive for prior recordings and an easy-to-read block overview of each episode at iHeartDomainscom. Prior recordings are also available in podcast form on every major podcast player, including Apple Podcasts, spotify and iHeartRadio, again easily searchable at tech talk that host as you guys are coming in. Like I said, like your retweet, share using that bottom right hand bubble. Welcome to my two speakers on the stage. How are you guys doing today? Collector and JP, how are y'all?

Speaker 2: 4:40

Jim, guys going both on mute at the same time. What's good, jp, I don't think we've come across each other before. What's good man, see? Yeah, excited to be here, excited to be part of the tech talk today. Man, domains are definitely alpha. I see Bam and the listeners as well. If you want to get up on stage're talking domains. If you want any alpha about web 2, web 3 domains I know we were discussing it the other day this is definitely the space to be talking about domains. But yeah, when, what's good man long time yeah, it has.

Speaker 1: 5:17

It has been a long time since spaces and I'm actually um. Jp is my irl friend and it's great to have you both on here because you both have come in at kind of both sides of the spectrum. I know you and I have started this Web3 domain kind of education, marketing, investing journey almost at the same time, simultaneously. You know, jp and I have recently built a relationship and we're kind of, you know, stewarding the next chapter of what I think will be effective in onboarding and education. So, yeah, once he's able to come back in and hop back up, definitely love for him to introduce himself and it's great to have you both on to get your perspectives. Go for it, jp. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Yeah, I was going to.

Speaker 3: 6:06

Sorry, I had to leave and come back because I couldn't. I wasn't able to hear anybody. But yeah, I'm JP, I'm glad to be able to do this IRL event with our heart domains. I'm really excited because I think that in-person onboarding is really where it's at, versus just really talking over the Internet, and I'm glad that we have this opportunity to be in front of people and build a relationship with them and give them like a different experience of being in this space. And, yeah, I'm really excited.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Absolutely. Thank you for being here, sir, and how you doing. Bam, you're a recent new friend. I met a couple what was it last week in Collector's Circle? Glad to have you on board as well. Thank you for being up. Go ahead and introduce yourself if you'd like.

Speaker 4: 7:07

Yeah, by all means man. No, I'm just I don't know how I stumbled across Collector bro, Just good peoples I'll be honest with you and then not many people I actually want to talk on the phone with. I had a really decent conversation with the guy and you know, when someone mimics some of your perspectives on even on the market, or has a different take than you, but it doesn't, it's not to where it's trying to say like oh, and you didn't know this, or it's kind of speaking down on you. It's more along the lines, you know, when someone knows how to just riff good ideas or information, it's just a healthy conversation, bro. Like that could go on for a while.

Speaker 4: 7:52

I talked to the brother for like an hour and a half and I didn't even know the guy, but I at least walked away with some things that I wanted to take away, and that's why, when he introduced me to you, I was like, okay, all right, so this is a whole other realm I'm not even into yet. But one thing I do, like, brother, I do, even if I can't put it to use or make money off of it, I do like to just at least get an understanding of what's going on and and everything that I at least could come across. If it's by accident, I mean, I sometimes feel like that's for a purpose. So I'm over here like fuck it, man. I saw collector was in a space. I saw you were hosting. It was like shit. I was like yo, I haven't talked to these guys in a couple of days. I'm like let me see what's up with them yes, sir, yes sir, collect collectors.

Speaker 1: 8:43

one of them ones and I've been telling people you know, especially if you're wanting to get connected with green culture, it's kind of the best of both worlds. You know, he and I obviously originally found Synergy in the domain space, but we shortly became friends and same thing I mean me and him have spent countless times on the, on the phone or on telegram having conversations about all kinds of aspects of the space. So Always been blessed to have him as a friend and definitely blessed to have him up here and yeah, exactly why it connects me with, with new people who also provide value.

Speaker 2: 9:16

so Yep, crazy the other day, like we were on a space I think it was about like I think it was actually about meme coins and stuff. And then, yeah, we just got into the topic of like domains and like all the different like I don't know, firstly, providers, different structures, like the web 2 structure compared to, like the web free structure, the ens, the souls, the free names, all that kind of stuff. Then I was like, yeah, man, like you definitely go come check out like some of these, like domain focused spaces, cause like it's a small niche of web free but people are still active in it, people still care about this, this stuff, and, um, there's money to be made with domains as well. At the end of the day, like people come into web free, they want to find like alternative ways that they could invest or probably lose money and mean coins. But, um, yeah, like domains, like there could be um value there as well.

Speaker 2: 10:08

Like whether you're um I don't know, flipping domain speculating, whether, like you're generating like passive income through, like I don't know, owning TLDs or whatever, like there's different ways that people could actually um use these and it's not really like a volatile asset compared to rest of web free as well. Um, most of the domains are like pay once, own forever, especially in like the web free element, and if you learn to like harness that, you could probably invest like a couple hundred dollars and you don't need to worry about like whether that's going to go up or down. It's, it's gone. It's just about like how you then recoup that, however long that takes, because you're not timed against the market anymore.

Speaker 1: 10:50

Like, um, that assets there could you might not make a dime from it for five years, ten years, but it's not going to go anywhere yeah like and and that's the thing right For us that are in this space, who are investing, especially those of us who have already made, you know, a profit on our investments and, you know, are kind of just building and continuing on that path, there's like limitless and we can speak from the rooftops about it. Communicating that to other people, though, is what has seemed to be the challenge, even with people inside of our space, and, you know, that's what I hope to cover. You know, during this space is kind of the point of this space is, as typical. Before we get into the main subject, I do have a little bit of opening news I would like to touch on, because I do like to recognize the rest of the space and its existence.

Speaker 1: 11:47

One of the first pieces of opening news I did want to remind everyone of is a recent announcement from Freename. We just had the well-talked spaces on Friday doubling down on the announcement, but they have just recently enabled the ability to mint on Solana, so the Solano ecosystem is now wide open to all free name investors. Whether you are minting TLDs, which are top level domains, or SLDs, you have a choice of putting on Solana and, of course, building out into the future and how big that ecosystem is becoming, and you know the amount of users that are starting to go over there and now starting to pay attention to digital identity. You know that could represent huge opportunity for anybody that takes advantage of it. So, whether or not you are already connected with Freename, yeah, that's some news you can use and you can go to Freenameio to learn more about their platform, join their community. But, yeah, the Solana integration is something that, again, has been a long time coming. Once again, I do want to say congratulations to the free name team, especially collector, for finally achieving this monumental integration.

Speaker 2: 12:56

I know you like it's about time, bro, like, and the way that they actually got the Solana TLD. I'm intrigued about that Because if you guys know how, like, 3name moved, they're very strategic with their pieces and stuff. So I feel like this delay wasn't even the tech side that delayed on this.

Speaker 1: 13:23

And I think it was more on the legalities. Yeah, probably no-transcript legal team has given them clearance to push that ahead. Very valuable domains. If any of you guys know, like I said, about FreeName and their program, you would know that they're pretty heavily into business development, really on their stuff. When it comes to you know their game plan and their vision moving forward. They're communicating with ICANN and have some big plans for the future. So NFADYOR but freenameio, if you guys want to learn more.

Speaker 1: 14:16

Another thing, which is you know something that this entire time right, I was like today years old when I learned that there are certain emojis that because you know, I guess there's so much going on in them that they actually count as more than one character I finally clicked that there are single emojis that could be minted as ENS domains. Right, you see most people with the triple emojis, like triple hearts or something like that. But there are certain emojis like one of the best examples is a gentleman that goes by TuxedoManeth, and not to get kind of all deep into that, but I had a conversation recently about kind of how bullish I was on how rare those are as compared to the 999 Club and et cetera and all that kind of stuff, and I'm not going to pretend like I'm fully integrated into their economy and economics, but it seems like right after that we just so happen to have a registration. And this is key, because registration is different from a sale. A sale can be washed. Obviously Somebody can manipulate that, but somebody had to take some hardcore money, register this, and I think all of this money goes to the DAO.

Speaker 1: 15:21

So this single emoji domain probably came up or expired or went into premium or something like that, but 10.55 ETH for it's like hypnotized face. So the squirrely eyes and the little squiggly mouth, you'll see it, hypnotized face, and I'll post it at some point.

Speaker 2: 15:41

10.5 ETH someone just paid for a domain. I sure did, sir, at some point. But 10.5 ETH someone just paid for a domain.

Speaker 1: 15:43

I sure did sir, that's over 30 grand that somebody paid for what is essentially a single emojieth. So not only am I saying that, you know they're reporting the sale itself as news, also you know kind of wanted to share that that. That's just something recently that again kind of popped into my little thought process. You know I've been coming across tuxedomaneth a lot and in other spaces I've been attending, and then it just clicked. I was like why does he have a single emoji domain as opposed to everybody else? That triples up. And then you know, the whole world opened up and obviously. So, yeah, more opportunities out there for any of you guys who want to scout out you know some super rare ens domain names. You know, again, I was today or so when I found out listening now he's like yo, what the hell?

Speaker 2: 16:32

12, if 10, if whatever?

Speaker 1: 16:33

that amount was like what the hell is going on and like with domains and shit I I was saying it too, like I feel like if I had known this any earlier than now, I really would have done something with this information that probably would have been profitable. So I'm a little sad kind of learning it now. But better now than never, right? And then, lastly and this is kind of tying into the main subject, we'll go ahead and get into that. Another thing that I posted up at the top is an announcement.

Speaker 1: 17:06

As JP alluded to, both he and I have co -organized this is sponsored by VerbsDAO. So if any of you who are familiar with nouns, verbs is a, I guess you'd say, a fork of nouns with its own big identity, personality, and we got actually a lot of stuff going on in VerbsDAO, so kind of built our own, but a lot of great DAOs have forked the original Downs contract. So just to make that make sense, but VerbsDAO, which is a DAO that I belong to, has sponsored an IRL meetup with the purpose of onboarding people into Web3, educating, bringing people into the Verbs ecosystem and basically doing good with no expectation of anything in return obviously aligns with my ethos. So you know, hey, what we are going to start doing once a month out here in San Antonio, which is a city of a couple million people, is a monthly meetup to do exactly that, to introduce people to Web3, and probably the most comfortable and non what do you call it the non-technical way possible Bring your dog, bring your kids.

Speaker 1: 18:14

We found a nice little spot that's comfortable and inviting for, like I said, for families, you can come there, learn, get a free cup of coffee on us. We're going to be onboarding people hand-to-hand with you know, we have kind of a process that we've laid out and actually you know what I'm going to let JP kind of lay it out, kind of from the education perspective. But we do have a process that we intend to do and trying to onboard people using some of the tools that you're already familiar with, via Cash App, et cetera. But yeah, if you want to go ahead and touch on that a little bit, sorry to put you on the spot, but I figured maybe it better come from you.

Speaker 3: 18:49

Yeah, sure, no worries.

Speaker 3: 18:52

Yeah, so, courtesy of one of our sponsors, free Domain we're going to be giving out free verbs domains to everybody that attends and we're going to make everybody use the Coinbase Smart Wallet, which gives a frictionless experience in having to create a wallet for somebody, especially if it's their first time, and when they mint the domains, they're going to be able to use their client-based wallet and there's no gas fees associated with having to mint the domain. So that's one cool experience that I think would be cool for someone that has no experience with any of this technology to just kind of see and get that feel for that. And yeah, I mean, this first meetup is really just going to kind of be an introduction of kind of where we're trying to take this and kind of like our vision, but definitely starting like somewhere. But I definitely want to use this as a platform just to educate people, because I feel like people learn better when you're making a connection with them and looking them like eye to eye. So that's why I'm like excited to get my hands on on this.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Yes, sir, absolutely excited to get into it and what he just dropped. There is something that we're actually going to make a bigger announcement a little later in coordination with our partner, freedame. But big shout-outs to Freedame. As you guys know, we've been connected for quite some time. Love how open-minded they are and, again, how they share our same vision of trying to bring real people into space. As you just mentioned, and, like I said, as we're going to make a bigger announcement shortly, people who come to our IRL Mixer are actually going to get onboarded, you know, in a digital identity with a free verbs domain name, and then, in addition to that, you know we're going to be using a combination of Coinbase, wallet, all sorts of just different. Again, easy to understand, easy to download things with simple user interface. Again, the purpose of this mixer here is strictly to make this make sense to normal and ordinary people who aren't techie. Techie. If we're able to onboard just one, or if we're able to onboard, you know, 500 or thousands, I think either way, we have done our job and, with that being said, yeah, that kind of rolls us in to the general topic of our main discussion, which is are we really onboarding? Again, posted a couple of things at the top. If anybody else wants to come up and speak, feel free to request a speaker on. But yeah, audits and optimization are tools and processes for success for builders. If you're here for a reason, it's important to stay on track and stay effective in whatever mission you're here for, and that's the purpose of today's spaces. It's an audit and a reflection of sorts on how effective, you know, our mission has been from day one, which is to make this make sense, not only to my people, but all people, so that we don't miss out on, you know, the economic, economic opportunities that constantly passes by just because of lacking understanding what it even is.

Speaker 1: 22:17

Any of you who know me know that I have an achiever mentality or personality. Mentality or personality, and what that means is that seeing something through in a lot of cases is as important, or sometimes even more important, than profiting from it. You know, think of the mindset of inventor, someone who has an idea that they just have to get out. You know, even though the project or whatever it is, you know, or even though they may hope to be profitable or may want to start a business from it in the future, even though the goal may have started off that way. Inventors love to create. They love to see something through the concept of someone else appreciating the completed project and being able to use it to benefit from it.

Speaker 1: 22:58

That, in and of itself, is is something that drives a person, and and that's what I'm driven by Like I'm driven by building. I want to genuinely leave a legacy. So, with that being said, as much as I love Twitter likes and building all these great relationships on the internet, the true measurement of success for me is how much actual traction we're making with this. Like. Have we made onboarding any easier, right? Is this world any closer to understanding what a Web3 domain or an on-chain domain even is? Before I kind of dig deep into that, any of you guys up at the top want to chime in or add anything?

Speaker 2: 23:42

I think it's good that you guys are actually doing these IRL activations and stuff. And even if you get like one person like onboarded into Web3, like one new person and stuff, it shouldn't be forced and stuff Like people should come naturally and shit, but definitely like good activations to do this stuff.

Speaker 1: 24:04

Yeah, activations to do this stuff, yeah, and and, like I said, slowly but surely, you know, like I said, optimizing, trying to figure out what works, paying attention to what real people are saying, and that's a big key too, and I'm gonna I'm gonna use that word a lot real people is not to say that the people that I'm referencing when I say that are not real. It's just to separate it from there's different. There really is two different demographics that we think may be one and the same, that are completely different the rest of the world and the tech world. Right, the tech world gets this and inside of our bubble, it makes super sense to everyone in the tech world.

Speaker 2: 24:40

So we think we were like these people at one point as well. Like, at one point, we didn't know what web free was. We didn't know what like crypto and blockchain and all this stuff was as well. So it's just um the education element. I guess, like people are the same, it's just um their receptiveness, their receptiveness to learn, the educate themselves, like, like um someone was saying that, at the end of the day, we were all normies or whatever this term is at one point as well.

Speaker 1: 25:13

Yeah, I absolutely agree and, like you said, with education, with making it make sense. Hopefully more and more people are onboarded with time, because Web3 isn't something that's only beneficial to one demographic of people. Us in the space we definitely understand that we see things being built from every spectrum of everything in this space and so, yeah, it's up to us to communicate that and start letting people know that it's not just for people who want to gamble or buy NFTs, et cetera. But, yeah, with that being said, I want to reflect back, you know, to our recent experience at the Grammys and the celebrity media suite that I showcased with alongside of our partner, free Name, this past. I think it was like January, february. It seems like it was so long ago and I forget that we're still like in the same year. We're only in like July, august. But I want to reflect on what I was trying to accomplish there, you know, kind of as part of this discussion. The more I audit the results from that experience, the clearer both the distance and the path right becomes for how we can actually get somewhere with this, you know, and my goals with that. You know, I kind of figured that if we could influence, you know the influencers, the rest of the world would come Right. The problem that I encountered out there is that the influence influencers don't really know what this is either. As I mentioned, you know, in several spaces, it was such a struggle. And shout out to Eleanor, who was with Free Name, you know, shout out to her. She stood there with me and went through the struggle with me. But it was such a struggle over and over and over again to figure out new ways to effectively and quickly get to the point of why these have value to non-technical or crypto people, especially when you're talking to people who are successful, you know, are successful in life. You know, as I mentioned before, I have business managers and things like that. So you know they think they're doing just fine and if it hasn't come across their desk, it's just a toy. Now, did I get somewhere there? Actually, yeah, I did. You know I've. I've had quite a few great conversations since, you know I've. I actually onboarded a couple of celebrities to my DeFi wallet, tld. I'm already in the planning stages of another similar campaign and not to mention, you know, getting that free and valuable airtime from LA's News 4 out there during the Grammy segment. I mean, that's something that that's purely priceless, but was it the outcome that blew my socks off? Yeah, but what it did is it taught me quite a few things, and those things are the basis for this conversation.

Speaker 1: 28:00

It's the obvious thing that we for some reason haven't placed this priority on trying to overcome is that this is super techie techie as Flexster likes to put it. There's really no non-nerd way to put digital identity. Right now, we're that early. There was so many times where I'm getting through, like trying to get through a spiel or trying to talk to somebody, and like I had to remind myself, like bro, you're doing it again, like you're going off into into to Star Trek world with what you're trying to say and explain something when it should be extremely simple, where we should, at least by now, have some sort of elevator pitch and we can look at that one of two ways. Right, we it's okay that we may not necessarily have one right now, because we are still early. Right, where a lot of what we're doing is, even though it's functional, it's still conceptual. Right, where crypto as a whole is a bubble, and that's another big realization that I came to while trying to explain this.

Speaker 1: 29:05

Again, everything outside of something simple like buy some Bitcoin or do you know what Bitcoin is? Or get an NFT, price might go up or collect the board ape is high are more technical than that. That's the hurdle that I think we, not only as Web3 domain onboarders in education, have to go over or get over, but the space itself needs to go over multiple times as more people on board into web3 itself and start understanding web3 and crypto itself the rest of this part what you need in order to navigate it, you know, with the easiest way possible, with immutable ownership, that should come just natural. It's just like you know, toothpaste right, toothpaste is the most entertaining conversation in the world to have and you probably don't have it that often, but it's something you got to wake up and look at every single day when you brush your teeth. It's what you start your day with.

Speaker 1: 30:08

Identity is something that you start your day with, but you got to start your day in Web3 to need a Web3 ID, and so that was one big thing. You know it's. We're not only overcoming the education part for Web3 ID but, as you see, even interwoven in our game plan with the monthly mixtures via verbs. A lot of that process in this mixer is involving just getting people to understand what a wallet, web3, and crypto is in general, general, and then the onboarding him into. You know, the digital id part is is gonna have to come second because we have to put the cart before the, or what is the? Is it? Don't put the car before the horse. You're supposed to put the car before the horse, I don't know. Uh, collector, what are your thoughts on that, sir?

Speaker 2: 30:58

definitely like um. Something to get people's head around, like the way I explain domains, is that if people are bullish on phone numbers, if people are bullish on number plates, they're both like geographically restricted, whereas like a domain is like available globally. There's no restrictions based on where you are in the world to have like a domain that someone else could want and stuff like at the end of day, it's all online and whether it at the end of day, it's all online and whether it's on the internet, whether it's on the blockchain, that is a global reach. It's not geographically restricted like the traditional, like um number plates and phone numbers, which already go for like hundreds of thousands of dollars in like auctions for like premium names. So that same concept applies here.

Speaker 2: 31:44

But um, it's not the first element that people need to understand. They need to understand like, why like crypto is different to stocks, what the blockchain is, how it all operates, the different chains, what you can do on these different chains, and then I guess domains would be like um. It wouldn't even come like. Next, then there'd be like meme coins and there'd be nfts, all this kind of stuff domains literally like the smallest part of web3 I, I agree with you as far as how the picture looks now.

Speaker 1: 32:17

It's. It's funny that you say meme coins should come next. And and I, I do need to do a lot more. I mean I'm I trade meme coins just to make price go up, but I do need to understand the culture more. I mean I trade meme coins just to make price go up, but I do need to understand the culture more. And again, that's just like with everything right, more context, everything helps you understand it.

Speaker 1: 32:31

But, yeah, the same message that we're trying to get across having your name should be probably the most important thing to anybody in the space, probably even before purchasing their first piece of crypto. In general, right, it's just that we haven't been able to make the case right, or to make the use case, I guess you would say important enough or cool enough, or it hasn't solved a big enough problem for us to make that the reality, or the perception in people's mind. I mean, think about, like web two domains. Right, there's, when you and that's the position that web, two domains takes place right now, like so a person, an entire business consists of, whether it's an online or offline business. You know it consists of multiple working parts, but it's generally understood that one of the most important things that you will probably need to get for people to both A find all the information about your business and B for branding as a domain name. You go to 99% of people and you tell them you should get a com if they tell you about a business and they automatically understand why I mean that's adoption, automatically understand why I mean that's adoption. When we can get to that point with Web3 identity, when people are so used to or understand crypto to the extent that they now understand, if I want to do something real here, the first thing I need is my identity so that I can keep track of these things, so that people can keep track or validate or identify me, then we've achieved some sort of adoption. And, with that being said, like, even though it's not currently the priority in this space and certainly isn't the priority of people outside of the space, another thing that I learned from going here is that it does still matter to try, which obviously we're still both doing right and all of us are still doing, and I'm saying that more from just a. Let's keep trying. So, people, you know, eventually people will hang on.

Speaker 1: 34:30

It's because of some of the things that happened, you know, during and after that event, that really made me think, okay, can't get through to everybody, but you're going to get through to some people. I had a few breakout chats, including with, with with Metallica, had a few breakout chats, including with uh, uh, with with Metallica. Um was very, very blessed to uh to, to get to speak with uh, robert Trujillo Trujillo I think I said that wrong Um, as well as um, a friend of his, that he brought another legendary bassist uh named Armand. Uh, I cannot say his last name, but any event, look these guys uh, solid people. If you're into rock, like me, in any event, look, these guys are solid people. If you're into rock, like me, into metal, if you're into legends, then you know who these people are. They go without introduction, but being able to have breakout chats with them.

Speaker 1: 35:16

So not only you know, was I able to shoot my shot, but there was a moment when I was waiting for valet and I was outside with both of them and during that time, I mean, they actually came to me and asked me more about this and gave me the opportunity, you know, to not only fan out with them some more, but to sow a seed without forcing it, and we never know where that seed is going to go, and that's why it is important, even though we think that we may be getting nowhere, to keep trying anyway. Right, but not try in vain. So, in the spirit of trying, what should we try next? Right, what is currently effective and what isn't? And I'm saying that kind of to take in kind of the totality of what we all do in order to onboard in the space. Obviously, you know Twitter and many of us who have Twitter spaces and platforms that try to engage with people here. You know, we're doing our best to get as much reach as you can.

Speaker 1: 36:09

The unfortunate thing, though, is that if you're only, I guess, advertising within the bubble, if you're only speaking to people inside the bubble, we never get outside the bubble, and we've said it before you end up with the same situation that we have now, where we're just circulating liquidity.

Speaker 1: 36:30

We're not really creating more reasons or more use cases or making it easier for people to understand.

Speaker 1: 36:35

We haven't actually gotten anywhere, even though the space itself may have seemed like it's gotten bigger, even though certain people may have profited in the space, even though there may be new companies that are onboarding and are coming into the space to build their own platforms. These platforms are going flat because we're not actually onboarding new people, we haven't brought new eyes into the space that weren't already educated or attached to digital identity, and that's why I said I'm glad to have both of you on the stage to get both of your sides of perspective, because, jp I mean, you probably come from maybe definitely from a generation younger than me, so this nerd stuff may not even be as appealing. I feel like I'm super old of understanding. But also, in addition to that, you don't really come from the digital ID side, even though you're really bullish on Web3 itself. You know, even since our conversations like, how have you kind of perceived where you know owning your identity in this space may fit, or what kind of importance it serves in your journey?

Speaker 3: 37:42

Yeah, honestly, I feel like sorry my voice a little bit. Since I've been around you, I feel like you kind of helped me realize the importance of domains, because I guess I wasn't necessarily focused on that. And so, yeah, I mean, I think it is important and I like how you were saying earlier about how you think it's probably the first thing someone should get before they even get crypto. And that's like exactly what we're doing at the meetup we're making sure that everybody gets their dot verbs domain, and everybody's going to have a domain before they have even any crypto or NFTs. So I definitely agree with that.

Speaker 1: 38:30

Yeah, and I'm going to kind of go through a little checklist and even some of the things that you know, the processes that you know I hope are successful during the IRL event.

Speaker 1: 38:40

But, yeah, I mean, we as educators and as onboarders, again, we have a responsibility to bring people in the space with the most value and, you know, with the most direction, and I truly believe that optimizing, you know, and connecting with people in the way that is best effective and another reason why it's good to communicate with people that are outside of your generation, that are outside of your circle, outside of your square, outside of your space, outside of your bubble, so that you can always optimize your process if that's who you're truly trying to reach.

Speaker 1: 39:12

Again, you know, staying on track with what your mission is, and I love to learn from people from different walks of the space and, like I said, different generations. It's a part of continuously learning. Before I kind of go through, you know, some of these points that I feel will aid in adoption and these are like actionable points that we can all do in one way or the other, will aid in adoption and these are like actionable points that we can all do in one way or the other, and that we've all witnessed in one way or the other, that I feel like we should just do a bunch more of. You know, both online and offline, but before I get into those, I also do want to welcome another good friend of mine to the stage. How are you doing, mike?

Speaker 5: 39:47

I really miss my winter drop. What's going on, guys? How is everyone today? Hope you're well. Yeah, good, good, I'm happy. I'm happy to be here A little while, since I've touched base with everyone. So, yeah, just I'm stoked to be here to get some, some alpha, uh, and if you don't know now, you know okay.

Speaker 1: 40:20

So carry on, my main man thank you, sir, always, uh, good to have you, um, here as well. Thank you for popping into the space, um, and definitely, like I said, blessed to have great people along with the journey. Looking forward to, you know, continue this journey, moving forward Again, optimizing the path forward for, you know, not only for education but for high heart domains in general, for how to be more effective with this. It kind of boils down. And so now getting down to my thought process and kind of some checkpoints of what I feel and you know, kind of some actionable items that I know me and JP are both going to enact on to try to onboard people into the space. But you know, first and foremost is one of the first hurdles that we need to overcome is even how to explain this to begin with. So, in addition to the tools, in addition to everything else that I'm going to mention, step one and you know this is something even, admittedly, you know you still have to take that time to practice. And this involves talking to people who are outside of the bubble, so you can see that look on their face that they don't understand what you're talking about, but it is. You know, we have to be able to answer one or two or both questions when you're talking to anybody, and that is is this cool, right? Or does this solve a problem? And that's usually what makes someone look at or receptive to something new. Is it being influenced? Or is it something that I'm seeing other people do and now I want to do that too because I think that it's fun and awesome? Or is there a problem that I have or that I've seen other people have that this fixes? I mean, cash App was a problem that was fixed by being able to do peer to peer transactions. Crypto is essentially that same, fixes that same problem, but we do have to find other angles and other spins to make it make sense, because you know people have already adopted Cash App and so why would somebody want to jump from that to something else? And that's. Do I have the answer for what will work for everybody in every situation? Do I have the answer for what will work for everybody in every situation? No, but working on that and creating that elevator pitch for yourself and testing that is something that we absolutely have to do, kind of as a prerequisite really, to starting anything else.

Speaker 1: 42:45

If you don't understand the why anybody should be in the space, or why anyone should have a digital ID and that, why can't just be because people like to own stuff. I mean, I've heard that argument a few times and I mean I guess there are a few things I think I have in life that I just wanted just because I wanted to have it, but I think I had a deeper reason for wanting it other than that, and then the wanting to have it just derived from that, but there was nothing ever worthless that I just wanted to have to have. Everyone has to have a reason and just because we've been able to create the reason internally, if you can't effectively communicate that reason to other people, they're not going to want it as much as you want it. So that's step one. But beyond that, which is, like I said, something that we kind of each have to work on individually and perfect our elevator pitch, the things that are being currently developed that we can control and the things that we are going to try to introduce to people and that we should all strive to introduce to people, are things like better and easier UI, ux, right. So this is a note to people who are building in the space we certainly need the different tools. We need the different marketplaces, we need the wallets. We need all of these things that we are building, but we need them built for five-year-olds. We need them built for kids to be able to go on an app store and be able to download them. We obviously need whatever you're building to be kids safe in the first place, but if you're building something that you want everyone to use, you need to build it at a skill set that everyone can use it, and it's even better if you can create the UI where people don't feel like they're interacting necessarily with crypto.

Speaker 1: 44:25

Now, obviously, with the Coinbase smart wallet, it's exactly what it is. It is a smart wallet to deal with crypto. However, I love the UI because that smart wallet concept that it takes into consideration makes it so that a person really doesn't have to deal with a lot of the things that we used to have to deal with at the back end, such as bridging and figuring out which exchanges to swap on and all this other stuff, Figuring NFT wallets and all that. The crypto smart wallet for Coinbase brings it all into one package and I think ever since I started using it for real for real maybe five or six months ago. I knew that it would be a valuable tool for onboarding people. So, making UI and UX for your dApps easy to get to, easy to download. You know more and more developers are building things that can be downloaded through the App Store. I know a lot of people are using like TestFlight and things like that, but the more and more app native things that's how people interact with electronics now, or people interact with services and goods is via apps.

Speaker 1: 45:28

Things that people can understand, that aren't super technical, I think are going to be a big bridge in overcoming the obstacle of understanding. You know how to get into this space and the way we intend to do that again is by walking people through it, one person at a time at IRL events and via networking, which is that next thing. You know, and I'm kind of going down some of the points that I mentioned in our blog article. I posted that also at the top. You know, and I'm kind of going down some of the points that I mentioned in our blog article. I posted that also at the top. You know anybody in your own time if you do want to read through. Actually, I didn't, no, yeah, I did post it up at the top. If you guys want to check out our blog article, that's on the website. It does list, you know, quite a few points and goes over a lot of what I'm saying, but these are different things, like I said, different actionable things that we can start doing or incorporating into our marketing plans to try to reach more actual people outside of our bubble.

Speaker 1: 46:25

You know, another one of those things is by being able to offer people, no matter what it is, something for free that then they can take and deep dive and leads them on the path to understanding the space better, which was the motivation behind the Verbs TLD Not only being able to introduce people initially off the top to probably the most valuable asset that they could own, which is their own name, but also giving them something without any strings attached without any I keep forgetting this word, it's not boundary but without any obstacles in the way, being able to give them an asset that they can now use to deep dive into the rest of this space.

Speaker 1: 47:17

You know, I think digital ID and Googling and traveling down the rabbit hole of digital ID, like it did for me originally a couple of years ago it's what originally led me to the path of understanding NFTs better. It actually helped me understand crypto and DeFi better. It helped me understand this space better by understanding again starting off with probably the most valuable asset, and we hope to help guide people again down that rabbit hole in a positive way so that they can understand the rest of the space better. But being able to give people something free, being able to give it to them in person and being able to give it to them in a way where they can easily interact with it, are all combinations of things that I think will make onboarding people easier. Yeah, free People like free right.

Speaker 5: 48:02

No, but surely they've got to buy some bull, surely on base.

Speaker 1: 48:13

Not for well, I see where you're going with that. You actually don't even have to buy bull on base. Uh, thank you for that little plug. For any of you guys who who love meme coins and want to invest in a meme coin that's absolutely dead but want to bring it back to life, you've got bull on base and that's just something. And again, as a collector was just up here, um, meme coins is also going to do a lot of onboarding. I think it's another powerful tool, so obviously invested in that space as well.

Speaker 1: 48:40

I know Paige is starting to conceptualize pairing Meme Coins with TLD. So many different ways to skin the cat. As long as we can make this make sense, we're all doing our part to build and onboard people. And, yeah, another way of doing so is with cross-promotion, with off-chain brands. If you guys have had a chance to look at the top and have seen the announcement that we have up there, we have a few brands that are on the flyer. You've got iHeartDomains up there, obviously. You've got Orion, which is co-founded and co-owned by JP down there, or you've got FreeName up there. But then we also have some off-chain partners that we are both already partnered with and we're talking with. Because, again, we want to make this make sense to people, no matter what you do, right? Because Web3 is bigger than just and can be and will be bigger than just trading cryptocurrency and if we can't figure out ways to explain or, you know, incentivize people to join the space or interest people to join the space, outside of financial incentivization, if there are no tools or if there's nothing interesting about this space outside of trading beef coins, that we're failing to start, if we do like, as we do believe that there's so much more to this than what people see on the surface. So we want to introduce people to all the amazing things that we see in all the builders that we have in the space, then should be comfortable doing that with people from all walks of life or from anywhere. So we do want to cross-promote with different off-chain brands in order to figure out a way to cross-market and to make it make sense to them.

Speaker 1: 50:22

There's a lot of ways blockchain improves processes. So being able to have those conversations, being able to make those partnerships the positive sum right, it starts small with just a mixer. It starts small with just trying to talk to people and getting them to understand this thing that we call Web3. It turns into maybe onboarding, you know, local businesses into Web3, maybe getting them to integrate cryptocurrency or Web3 or NFT starting loyalty programs. It turns into people wanting to do their own mixes. It turns into bigger brands wanting to collaborate with bigger brands. My point is that it is worth it to try, because trying can lead you down the road to all sorts of things.

Speaker 1: 51:01

And the last thing that I wanted to touch on and we introduced this the last Tech Talk, the VR partnership with Bytee is, I feel like incentivized learning as well is going to be a big part to onboarding people into the space. Coinbase again did an extremely good job with their Coinbase Learn. You know, when I first came into the space, you know I enjoyed earning free, random, you know dollar, two dollars, three dollars here of cryptocurrency that you know we all just swapped into ETH anyway, but still enjoyed. You know, getting those little rewards for learning. You know probably all just swapped into ETH anyway, but still, uh, enjoyed. You know, getting those little awards for learning. Um, you know, probably learned about a lot of things that would have never interested me otherwise. Um, you know, that's one of the things that excited me about the partnership with Mighty is being able to do the same thing. That might be the only reason some people pay attention to something, and that's okay, right? Uh, you know, that's the reason why you use bait to catch fish. Focus on the mission and not the condition. Right, I say it over and over again, but that's a part of optimizing auditing and being honest with what works via what doesn't work, and so I intend to continue to use that as an extremely powerful tool to onboard people, to incentivize people to learn. I think that we should continue to expand on that.

Speaker 1: 52:16

This mixer is a form of incentivized learning. Again, anyone who shows up to our coffee and crypto mixer the first 10 people and more, because I'll sponsor as many cups of coffee as we can afford or any sponsors shipping We'll get a free cup of coffee. We'll get you know plenty of free goodies from our other sponsors. We'll get a free verbs, the Bain name. We'll get you know, onboarded onto Coinbase Wallet, a wealth of education and much, much more, and this is all incentivizing them to continue to learn. You know, walking people down the path of what the Web3 community looks like, that it isn't this scary place. It isn't a place where you'll just lose money. It isn't a place where people are just rugging people. It isn't a place where you just buy worthless JPEGs. There are real communities that are here for you, that are truly dedicated to education. In the case of Verbs, verbs you're actually now being introduced to communities that take this a step forward. Uh, further, you know?

Speaker 5: 53:19

yeah, go for it sorry to cut in um guys, just a quick one. Um, if you are plugged in and you're learning and you're getting something from from when? Please go to the bottom right hand bubble like a retreat to space. He does this very often and he's it's a lot of time and effort and he's educating and helping people and he's been doing this for a long time, so he's he's a true veteran of this game. Um, and what I am gonna ask, because I know he's mentioning coffee, I know he's mentioning coffee, so while I because I'm an old boy, so that's why I cut him cut in um, cutting, cutting um.

Speaker 5: 54:11

But have you set up a? Um, you know by like, what's, what's the site called? Uh, buy me a coffee, where people can buy you a coffee. Um, because I know you're, you're sitting there, you're like doing research, you're giving it back to people and, um, you know we should, people should have a way of giving back, even if it's just a little something. There's a site that you can. I'll share it. Um, there's a site and you can I don't know if you've set it up yet, when, but you can set it up and people can just go in there and, um, just buy one a coffee.

Speaker 5: 54:55

So yeah, just as a little thank you. I know it might be it, you know might seem like nothing, but any little bit of appreciation would help. And also, you know he's he's mentioned his meme coin that he's been working on. It's on the base network. I know we're talking about other things now, but that's just another way of supporting the person who's speaking and who's on here. I'd say day in, day out. He's on here, but he's speaking at least a couple of times a week on spaces for everyone's education. It's free, but just a bit of times a week on spaces for everyone's education, and it's free, but just a bit of appreciation. You know, that's my 50 cents worth.

Speaker 1: 55:43

I always appreciate the love, bro, and you know I always appreciate the little interruptions to set everything on track. I also do. I'm going to look up that that. Buy me a coffee Cause. That's a great idea as well. Again, and this is kind of, we're about to wrap up this space as well. Getting close to the hour, there's actually another space going on.

Speaker 5: 56:06

I'm going to send you the link.

Speaker 1: 56:08

Yeah, please do that. I missed the first half of, but that's one of those things right Networking, partnering with and connecting with anything that can make this bigger. You know we, we're starting off small.

Speaker 1: 56:23

You know, we're gracious to have the support of herbs you know, gracious to support division of herbs, but any of these things, anybody who wants to help, that wants to participate in any way, and if you have any suggestions, please feel free to push them forward. Again, this is about building this space bigger and better and onboarding people with the right vision and the right ethos. As I was about to say about verbs, it's even bigger than the vision of just onboarding people into the space, but it's also onboarding people into the space that want to help other people and want to figure out how they can do that. The community of Web3 is bigger than just speculating on even meme coins or NFTs or Bitcoin or Ethereum. Web3 has brought together people from all walks of life to do all sorts of different things, and this is our way to show a different side of it and hopefully this way appeals, you know, to great people who then, in turn, onboard other people. And so yeah, in conclusion, yes, go for it.

Speaker 5: 57:29

Sorry, sorry, I just you should. Just, I'm going to change my name to interrupt when that's going to be the new hook. I've tagged you in the official X account. I've set up an account with them, but obviously I don't do as much as you do at the moment, but in the future, when I'm giving a bit more back to the space, then I'll set one up as well. But this is for any influencer or potential influencer or someone that's doing their thing, just for a little bit of appreciation back. Just buy someone a coffee. I've tagged you in there. So, yeah, you can go on the website website, set it up and then you can add the link to to all your socials and then people can go on there and there's many different ways to just buy you a coffee and that's me. I'm out, um, but um, I'm still here, but I won't, I won't disturb anymore.

Speaker 1: 58:28

so sorry people guys all good and, um, you reminded me that I need to reach out to you and have a long chat, probably sometime today. It's been a while so we can catch up. But yeah, definitely thank you for that suggestion. For anybody who wants to follow along, especially if you're local to San Antonio, texas or Texas at all, and want to take that drive, connect with both Verbs or the Verbs Hangout account. We do spaces every Wednesday there.

Speaker 1: 58:56

I host those spaces, so we're going to be talking about that kind of leading up to the event that's going to be on August 10th. Again, very much looking forward to it. Shout out again to JP I don't know if you want to say a couple more words before we end the space, but yeah, the kind of the point of this space was again as an audit, as a reflection of what we're doing, um, you know, uh, and then also, you know, uh, kind of a reflection of discussion of what we are going to do moving forward, and you know, um, you know, the path forward moving ahead and the vision moving ahead for for not only us as an individual, but even even the platform iHeartDomains.

Speaker 1: 59:33

I feel like we have a lot of work to do. I feel like there's a lot of groundwork to do bringing in normal people. Again, love Twitter, love talking to people who get it, but the real challenge is talking to people who don't get it and making it make sense that way. But yeah, if you have any words you want to end us with or any final thoughts, JP, go for it.

Speaker 3: 59:56

Yeah, shout out to you, Appreciate all the information and knowledge that you bring here, and I mean, that's exactly why we're doing this to bring what we're doing here to the people and to potentially like the masses. But you know, you got to start somewhere and I definitely feel like me and you have some really good chemistry in person, and that's why we even thought to start this in the first place. So I definitely think that we can leverage our passion and and our knowledge to reach and connect with people, and in a way that isn't really being done right now. And, yeah, I'm excited for that forefront and so yeah like on that.

Speaker 3: 1:00:41

I mean I'm excited for where it may go.

Speaker 1: 1:00:49

Yes, sir, yes sir. If any of you out there are building, are grinding, are hosting events, are networking, are doing any of these things, please do me a favor, tag us in them, share them. Let's share all of our offline efforts so that we can bring more people online and on-chain. I thank you everybody that's been here with us for this Tech Talk Again. We host these every week and you can go to techtalkhost and listen to our past podcast episodes, as well as iheartdomainscom to look through the rest of our platform and all the content that we've recorded.

Speaker 1: 1:01:28

For those of you who want to have a conversation and learn a little bit more about Web3 ID on your own time, we also have, for your convenience, an AI chatbot that I built. Let me see. It is mighty effective. So, yeah, feel free to go to iHeartDomainscom, follow us here on X, on Warpcast and, like I said, listen back to these spaces at techtalkhost. Again, focus on your mission and not your condition, happy domain condition, happy demanding, happy Wednesday. Look forward to seeing you guys in person, irl, if I can, and again, yeah, thank you guys for attending our tech talk, tech talk spaces. You have a good rest of the week, you.