Happy new years folks and welcome back to Based and Cryptopilled, the newsletter that will leave you slightly more informed and mildly entertained. 

Given its the new year, we've all probably made some ambitious resolutions about what we'd like to accomplish and who we'd like to become over the course of 2023. 

Gyms are packed, yoga studios have record signups, and liquor stores suffer from the beginning of the year slump in sales. 

One of my favorite graphs of all time.

"Monthly retail sales of beer, wine, and liquor stores in the United States"

In honor of healthy habits and good routines I'd like to introduce you to Hunter S. Thompson, famous writer and father of gonzo journalism. 

You may have read his book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or seen its subsequent movie featuring Johnny Depp. 

Thompson was an incredibly gifted writer who covered a variety of uniquely American topics from biker gangs like the Hell's Angels to presidential elections. He had a knack for being able to turn boring events like a conversation between two politicians into a prose that made it sound like a psychedelic sumo-wrestling match. 

Despite his enormous contributions to literature, prose, and journalism one of the most humorous aspects of Thompson's life was his alleged writing routine. 

A 3pm wakeup followed by copious amounts of alcohol, cocaine, weed, LSD and of course cigarettes (just to take the edge off) seems like a speed-run to mental psychosis, but it worked for Hunter... i guess. 

As much as I would enjoy writing it, this is by no means an homage to drugs, drinking, and degeneracy, but rather a gentle reminder of the diversity of genius that exists. 

Whether you are a writer, founder, investor, artist, or just someone trying to do something incredible, remember, there is no perfect routine for inspiration and creativity. We all run into and overcome our own unique challenges in discovering our purpose. 

I would recommend everyone read some of Hunter's work, he does have a fantastic way of using words to flip your mind inside out. But in the mean time here's a taste of Mr. Thompson's writing: 

Take care and hope you've had a great start to the new year :)

See y'all next week, 

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎. 

One of the greatest challenges that has plagued companies, countries, and leaders for millennia has been uniting people under a common vision.

The Roman Empire encompassed roughly 5 million square kilometers which included the entire coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. With a population between 50 and 60 million, the empire was projected to have little under a fourth of the worlds entire population at the time within its borders.

There are 1.3 billion people worldwide today who Catholics and unite under the Catholic Church as an institution.

Facebook has little under 3 billion people who use their services on a regular basis, with Google slightly ahead with a little over 4 billion users across their platforms.

However one institution that has put these massive behemoths of influence to shame is not a company, religion, or sovereign state, but a cultural export which has managed to capture the hearts of billions of across the globe. Football.

It is projected that by the end of this month roughly 5 billion people will have tuned into FIFA World Cup.

The medium which has managed to capture the most minds and hearts of people and countries across the world was not an innovation of software, ideas, or diplomacy, but of culture.

Why is this?

Football has deep roots in many of countries across the globe. Brazilian football in particular has shaped and been shaped by the countries unique history with race, class, politics, and culture. I would wholeheartedly recommend reading The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil by Gregg Bocketti to learn more about the inception of Brazil's creative jogo bonito (Portuguese for "the beautiful game") play style.

However, one country's passion for the game doesn't explain the immense popularity of soccer worldwide. There is no one good reason for the games popularity, with the truth lying somewhere across an array of geographic, historical, and cultural factors.

For me however, football is a medium which tells a story that is uniquely human, and no player captures this reality better than Lionel Messi.

The little boy from Rosario grew up in the Santa Fe province of Argentina to two working class parents. Although Messi's story has been repeated thousands of times the most interesting piece of it was his health challenges growing up.

As a child Messi was an incredibly skilled player scoring almost 500 goals during his time in the youth team. These dreams would be threatened when Messi was diagnosed with human growth hormone deficiency, a genetic condition which among many other symptoms would stunt his height.

His father's insurance would only cover part of the duration of treatment required to prevent the permanency of his condition. For multiple years, club after club rejected Messi, claiming he was far too young to recruit and too much of a risk given his medical condition. With time against the Lionel family, they had to find a club willing to take their son in and sponsor his treatment.

After some hesitation, an ultimatum, and a contract written on a paper napkin, Messi was signed to Barcelona who subsequently paid for the course of his treatment. The Lionel family moved to Spain where Messi would struggle with homesickness and making friends, but eventually worked up the ranks of Barcelona to become the star we know him as today.

Messi was never an underdog, but a champion that was overlooked who went on to inspire millions if not billions of people across the world.

Ok, so what does this have to do with tech and binnis again?

Football players are recruited at extremely young ages, so fans have a unique view of a player's entire life. Videos of moves that strikers practice during their childhood come to life decades later on the field and live eternally online, inspiring the billions of people that watch them.

The game is able to transcend the barriers of language and borders to unify and inspire people to matter where they're from.

Television, Facebook, and Tiktok are dubbed as innovations in technology, however, their greatest feat has been transforming the way we capture human culture and institutions which have existed for centuries longer than they have as companies.

Whether it's the next big app or innovation in camera tech, it's not media technology itself that connects us, but rather its ability to capture and tell the stories which make us proud to be alive.

It's no small feat to create an institution that connects 5 billion people on the plant. Rather than seeing companies and advertisers as the competition in a zero sum game, builders should view our shared global cultural identity as an opportunity to build for the moments bring us all together whether they be the World Cup or Easter Prayer.

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

2022's season finale is finishing strong. 

If you're on Kanye's PR team you're probably looking like this: 

If you're on Sam Bankman-Fried's legal council after his 87th media appearance this week you're probably looking like this:  

But if you're my grandma who's not chronically online (Unless you count Whatsapp), you're greeting all 1k+ people in your contact list with a happy December meme. 

Hope everyone has a lovely start to their month. With good wishes and blessings too. gn

See y'all next week, 

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎. 

Whether its on Slack, in a park, on gmail, at a cafe, scrolling on Tiktok, or at a bar with some friends we truly have a buffet of options to choose where we spend our time.

When people ask us what we were up to during the week or weekend we rarely mention the activities we do in solitude, even through these moments take up a considerable portion of our time whether it be doing the laundry, reading, listening to music, or just scrolling on our phones.

These lines tell a story with each increase opening a new chapter of our lives and their decrease marking their resolution. Going into each of these trends can be an entire novel so I'll focus on the one that sticks out like a sore thumb.

It's what some fear and avoid, others tolerate, and few embrace.

Being alone.

However its not the act of being alone for me that makes it the boogieman of my time but rather the feeling of being by yourself.

So how can we be alone but not lonely? Especially with the time we spend online.

The web is a double edged sword with the capacity to both connect and isolate us.

However while working with countless creators and collectives within crypto I've come to realize the power of building communities online that demand participation rather than attendance.

Whether its Facebook groups that are show and tells for birdwatching enthusiast, academic twitter professors sharing their research, or NFT communities raising funds to build games and buy basketball teams there's been a renaissance of new ways to organize on the web that all center around one ethic.

Collaborative communities.

However, being part of a community doesn't necessitate being amongst many people.

It can be reading a book you were recommended, learning a meditation new meditation practice, or preparing a meal from a different country you saw online.

Taking part in shared traditions, learning something new, and curating culture for ourselves are all ways we participate in community even if we do them in the comfort of our own solitude.

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

There was lots of talk of gainz in the office this week and it reminded me of my favorite fitness icon growing up Zyzz.

Aziz Shavershian was a legendary bodybuilder and Youtuber who went by the name zyzz. He rose to prominence for his hilarious online persona and insane body transformation.

From a self proclaimed "shy and skinny" kid, to a gigachad of the internet, zyzz inspired millions of kids and modern fitness content creators. He unfortunately passed away at the age of 22 in 2011 after suffering a heart attack while on vacation.

Although zyzz has passed away his legacy lives on the internet forever. Whether it's Instagram fan pages, Youtube tribute videos, twitter memes, or Tiktok's referencing his content zyzz's influence can be found on all corners of the internet from fitness creators, gamers, motivational speakers, and within internet culture writ large.

About 8,000 Facebook users die every day. Not because of Facebook (I hope) but rather a consequence of their own success as a platform. 2.93 BILLION people use one of Meta's core platforms every single day. It's estimated that roughly 30 million people have "memorialized" accounts on Facebook alone. By 2100 this number is expected to skyrocket given the platforms aging demographics.

Unfortunately not all of us can attain gainz and internet stardom like the late Zyzz, so what does that mean for the rest of us?

Is our entire digital footprint one product deletion, a corporate bankruptcy, or ads policy change away from being erased off of the face of the internet? Are all of the countless photos, videos, and writing we've done on the internet not going to be memorialized for our grandchildren or their grandchildren?

Each of us have contributed to this shared database of information we call the internet.

Although some of would prefer that our older posts on the web get blasted into oblivion, for the sake of preserving the history of humanity, or at least preserving our memory for our loved ones how will we forever memorialize moments like this?

Jokes aside, these large tech platforms will be around for a while (well we'll see given recent events), but it is almost assured that like any company, they too will eventually cease to exist.

Given the average company lifespan within companies listed in the S&P 500 is between 20-40 years, how can we prevent our memory from being forgotten.

Those of us who are bullish on crypto believe in a future where information and media has an intrinsic value attached to it outside of just being an intermediate within an ads marketplace.

Projects like Cryptopunks, whose actual color information, likeness, and attributes are stored in the form of raw pixels or svg's on chain reveal an opportunity to store information of images within a network which is validated by tens of thousands of people across the globe rather than one centralized entity.

Although these images are far from the vast variety, quantity, and quality of media that is currently stored on the web, on chain art is pioneering a new home for media whose posterity is guaranteed by community rather than a company.

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

As I was scrolling the depraved depths of the web I came across this image: 

Yes. That is DaBaby. As a car. Welcome back to Based and Cryptopilled. 

As hilarious as this image is it did get me thinking, what if DaBaby actually sold a car? 

There was a time not so long ago where people may have just bought DaBaby car. When the South Carolina rapper was still in the good graces of the internet and could release the same song 30x. That time is not now. 

Celebs sell a lot of things from toothpaste and insurance to clothing and books. And if your company has a truly skilled marketing department you can dish out collabs like the Martha Stewart and Snoop-Dog campaign with Bic lighters. 

The internet has caused a massive shift in trust of audience from institutions to individuals. 

Think about it. We all have our favorite fitness creator, random youtube teacher to help us understand difficult concepts from class, or writer who helps change our perspective on life. We've all curated a tribe of mentors, educators, and entertainers to help curate the activities we do and more importantly the goods we purchase. 

Instead of curating it seems like people with audiences are cutting out the middle man and becoming the products they used to get sponsored by, with the best example being Mr. Beast. 

Jimmy Donaldson, better known as Mr. Beast has recently began raising a venture round for $150 million at a valuation of $1.5 Billion. Mr. Unicorn is looking to expand his businesses which include his dozens of youtube channels, his restaurant Beast Burger, Feastables his snack line, as well as his merchandise arm. No small feat for someone who's initial rise to fame was from completing absurd challenges on Youtube such as saying Logan Paul's name 100,000 times. 

That's all to say, as manufacturing products and creating services becomes easier and easier, expect creator brands to slowly chip away at the incumbents. 

Does that mean we will see a DaBaby car in our lifetime? 

I do hope so. 

See ya'll next week :)

Let's be honest, its been a tough week for people who own tech stocks. I on the other hand have my entire savings in USD, so I get to watch my money burn too, just in slooooow motion 😎.

Now if you're not in the markets you're probably looking like this:

But if you're a Meta employee you probably look something like this:

That's all to say the difference between pure psychological agony and a blissful nights rest for many folks is line go up and line go down. For those who could care less, it's another Friday. Human perception is a funny thing, and coincidentally the topic for this weeks based newsletter.

If you've anything like me, you've definitely gotten mad after reading a tweet, happy after seeing a funny meme, and experienced a whole gambit of emotions after a Tiktok binge delivers you horrendous news right before a fart joke video.

The internet fr has me feeling dis:

Our minds can go to great lengths to play tricks on us, even manifesting pain which should be impossible to exist. If you don't believe check out the concept of "phantom pain", where amputees feel debilitating pain in limbs they no longer posses.

When our sensations and thoughts don't match up to our lived reality it can cause great distress. Whether that be trying to remain optimistic in the face of an impending global financial crises, or experiencing pain in a limb that doesn't exist.

However, there is an upside to this phenomenon. Human's ability to manifest material biological phenomena, such as pain, from psychological or immaterial inputs such as media is a double edged sword which also works in the positive direction. This is called the hedonic treadmill or what has been described in literature as the indomitable human spirit.

Humans have an in built capacity to endure adversity from natural disasters and the atrocities of war to breakups and market crashes, our brains have a funny way of always bringing our spirits back up :)

I'll leave you with a quote from Victor Frankel, holocaust survivor and author of Man's Search for Meaning.

Have a blessed weekend friends.

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

While scrolling the depths of twitter I came across a meme which compared the price of the S&P 500 index to each time that Lil Yachty dropped an album. 

Shocking... right. 

Given his recent hit Poland, it's not looking too hot for the markets. 

I'd like to believe that lil boat is influencing the Fed's Monetary Policy and that his albums are a warning cry to all traders. 

Each album a canary in the coal-mine that is US capital markets. 

Models such as the Yachty index should become a staple of economists, traders, and degenerates like myself who are looking for sound fundamental analysis. 

As should the scarecrow indicator. 

Or the Dino Delta Curve

And lest we not forget the Evergreen Forest Formation. 

Aside from treating your investment strategy like an astrology reading, it's important to learn about the other ways these mystical pattern recognition abilities us humans have can cause us financial, cognitive, and ideological ruin. 

In fact, someone has devoted an entire website to shining a light on these "spurious correlations". Here are some of my favorites. 

Moral of the story, never hire Nick Cage to be a lifeguard at your local pool...

Well at-least Toyotas are mad reliable. 

So next time you think you've come up with an ingenious mental model, groundbreaking trading strategy, or the next great invention, be rigorous in your thinking. Don't forget about the Yachty Indicator or Nick Cages suspect activity around pools. 

See y'all next week, 

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎. 

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you healthy, wealthy, and somewhat well informed.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• Seeking Sigma

• The Volcker Pill

• The Tungsten Pill

• Implosions and Explosions.

Seeking Sigma

THE VOLCKER PILL

Paul Volcker was the 12th chair of the Federal Reserve during the Carter and Reagan administrations and is widely credited with ending the seemingly uncontrollable inflation that was plaguing the United States Economy at the time. With markets down, inflationary fears rising, and Jerome Powell being at the center of the news almost every day lets take a trip down memory lane and revisit one of the absolute GOATS of central banking.

Before he was the chair of the Fed, Volcker served an advisory role to President Richard Nixon and was instrumental in his move off of the Gold Standard leading to collapse of the longstanding Bretton Woods system that was established by Keynes. While he was chair of the Fed, Volcker established some of the steepest rate hikes seen in US history topping little over 20% at times. This led to widespread hatred and dissatisfaction with the Fed, but were the measures that the economy needed at the time to curb inflation. I would highly suggest reading his autobiography Keeping At It.

CRYPTOPILLZ

🪚 The much anticipated anime Chainsaw Man came out this week. The editors have been hard at work making me feel the fomo.

🐂 "Innovation is saying no to 1000 things before you say yes" Learn how Steve Jobs' product philosophy was influenced by Pablo Picasso's Bulls.

📚 Virginia Woolf on the Courage to Create Rather Than Cater and the Remedy for Self-Doubt

THE TUNGSTEN PILL

Tungsten DAO, a collection of artists, builders, and most importantly memers is one of the most interesting projects within crypto. Coined after the dense metal tungsten, the DAO aims to proliferate their treasury and brand through memes and auctions. They allow members of the community to submit meme's that they would like to auction through Tungsten DAO, and if selected collectors will often purchase these pieces at auction for upwards of $30,000 USD.

Tungsten DAO shows me the amazing potential to incubate memes and culture. Taste-making is no longer a passive activity of sharing content and recommendations, but one where artists, collectors, and innovators can come together to incubate the most viral elements of culture. Looking forward to seeing the dankness that comes out of the DAO.

Implosions and Explosions

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you healthy, wealthy, and somewhat well informed.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• Seeking Sigma

• The Helium Pill

• The Taleb Pill

• Implosions and Explosions.

Seeking Sigma

THE HELIUM PILL

Exciting to see the same tools used to incentivize individuals to become validators for Bitcoin and Ethereum being used to motivate people to proliferate web access. Might have to switch over from Spectrum LFG 😎

CRYPTOPILLZ

🏘 Check out liminal spaces to see how nostalgia make you feel uneasy.

🕵 FatManTerra is a Twitter account that sure to give you some cutting edge investigative financial journalism on crypto companies and protocols.

😼 Cats now know how to use ice dispensers. Didn't know I needed to see that but made my day better :)

THE TALEB PILL

The Black Swan is a must read for anyone interested in finance, philosophy, and the phenomena of randomness. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nasim Taleb covers the extreme impact of rare and unpredictable events, as well as the error in human judgement towards them. The book is a meditation on one idea according to Taleb, "our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly large deviations.".

With that I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the book:

Implosions and Explosions

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you healthy, wealthy, and somewhat well informed. 

Here's the breakdown for today: 

• Seeking Sigma

• The Starbs Pill

• The Bot Pill

• Implosions and Explosions.

Seeking Sigma

THE STARBS PILL 

The layer 2 solution Polygon has partnered with Starbucks to help build the future of on chain rewards. 

This partnership opens up the possibility of creating on-chain, tradable tokens for customers of Starbucks which gives them the ability to be rewarded for their loyalty to the brand. 

Polygon has also partnered with Disney, Instagram, and Reddit to help build out their web3 solutions using their lighting fast network built on top of Ethereum. 

CRYPTOPILLZ

🧮 Here's a list of equations that have changed the world. For the math enthusiast out there.  

🔼 Philographics: Big Ideas in Simple Shapes is a book that explains big philosophical ideas through simple shapes. 

🤑 Berkshire Hathaway has all of their shareholder letters available for your viewing pleasure. Serious alpha.   

THE BOT PILL 

Developer and art enthusiast Andrei Taraschuk has been active in the internet art work for a while. If you use Twitter you've most likely seem some of the automated Twitter bots he has created to share fine art from the likes of Monet, Van Gogh, and Picasso to tens of millions of people.

He has been building BotFrens which gives the capability to share art through automated Tweets to help keep your Social Media community engaged, informed, and growing! If you love an artist and want to show them some love, creating a bot for them is the best way to share their work! Happy posting :)

Implosions and Explosions

See y'all next week, 

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎. 

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you healthy, wealthy, and somewhat well informed.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• Seeking Sigma

• The Saylor Pill

• The Babel Pill

• Implosions and Explosions.

Seeking Sigma

THE SAYLOR PILL

Famed bitcoin maximalist and OG bitcoin HODLER Michael Saylor announced that his company Microstrategy now holds roughly 130,000 Bitcoins which equates to little under 1 out of ever 150 bitcoins that will EVER be in circulation. Absolutely nuts.

It has been a rough year for Microstrategy with rumors on the street saying that they've been margin called during this market cycle. Microstrategy CFO Phong Le said the company could post more collateral to their loans to endure future volatility. Given that the company is primarily a data-analytics and cloud computing provider, its interesting that Saylor has taken such a bullish position with bitcoin in place of its cash reserves.

gg no re.

CRYPTOPILLZ

💡 The 1930 Nobel Prize speech of Sir Chandrasekhara V. Raman is a beautiful piece of prose that will surely make you fall in love with the physics of light :)

🎥 Documentary director Deeyah Khan has a wonderful interview where she talks about her work documenting hate groups around the world.

⭕ Here's a an optical illusion that's sure to stump you. None of the circles change shape or size just their colors!

THE BABEL PILL

I had my mind blown recently by the Library of Babel, a collection of random combinations of 3200 characters that contains every sentence in existence or will ever exist...

They've recently launched the image archives which takes this concept to another level, generating random assortments of 4096 colors, rather than a page of 40 lines each with 80 characters, and images which are pixel grids of 416 rows and 640 columns.

Hypothetically there could be images of events that have yet to happen or pictures of memories that you never captured. Absolutely insane. Really goes to show how many unique thoughts, ideas, and memories people have are simply the reflection of random chance.

Implosions and Explosions

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you healthy, wealthy, and somewhat well informed.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• Seeking Sigma

• The Tyson Pill

• The Design Pill

• Implosions and Explosions.

PICK YOUR PILL...

THE MIKE PILL

Mike Tyson, yes you read that correctly. World famous boxer, recent podcaster, and weed enthusiast Mike Tyson has teamed up with the game studio Ex Populus to create "Iron Pigeons", a crypto card set within the trading game Final Form.

As a fan of Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone I'm hyped to see some fresh faces in the card gamin zone. LFG. Reminds me of the Yu-Gi-Oh! days when I was a kid. Pretty sure I spent a good chunk of my moms change trying to get the rare "Dark Magician" card. Never did. Maybe I'll have better luck with Mike's collection.

CRYPTOPILLZ

✍ This is Onym, an open source attempt to organize the best tools and resources for naming things.

🏈 Here's how you can create your own personal life and business playbook to live life like a pro football coach.

💸 There's a famous flowchart created by the financial independence retire early community on reddit.

THE RED PILL

awwwards is an amazing tool that showcases the best websites on the internet. If you're looking for the cutting edge of what that browser can do for you I'd definitely check them out.

From portfolios and landing pages to digital art projects and experiments awwwards has really opened my eyes to what is possible when you treat the web as your canvas. Time to start grinding out that front end dev sheeeeesh.

Implosions and Explosions

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you healthy, wealthy, and somewhat well informed.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• Seeking Sigma

• The Uber Pill

• The Balaji Pill

• Implosions and Explosions.

Seeking Sigma

THE UBER PILL

Uber recently got hacked with the exploiter gaining control of some of the most fundamental layers of Uber's codebase. In fact this fellow even managed to gain admin access to Uber's AWS account. Oof. Apparently the hacker notified the company via their Slack 😭. “I announce i am a hacker and uber has suffered a data breach." Based.

The hacker said that he "did it for fun" and may release the source code "in a few months". Hacking into Fortune 500 companies tech stacks is one hell of a hobby. Uber employees thought it was a joke and started sending Mr. Krabs memes in chat. Uber's IT department responded with “Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I think IT would appreciate less memes while they handle the breach.”. Ouch

CRYPTOPILLZ

🎨 The Designer Daily Report is a fantastic web extension that gives you your daily dose of all things design from fonts and portfolios to brands and pallets.  

💹 Watch Li Lu legendary investor, Colombia BS, MBA, and JD graduate, and student of Charlie Munger scream at the new generation of Colombia business students.

🦘 Apparently the tail of a kangaroo walking works as hard as an actual human leg. So there's that.

THE BALAJI PILL

There are some books that you judge by their covers, others by their summary on the back. The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan is one that sets itself apart from the rest with its brilliant organization, innovative design, and of course its insightful content. I'd urge you to read it free on its website where Srinivasan offers various synthesis of the fundamental thesis of the book.

Srinivasan himself offered a one sentence summary of his book:

Implosions and Explosions

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you healthy, wealthy, and somewhat well informed.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• Seeking Sigma

• The Blue Pill

• The Red Pill

• Implosions and Explosions

Seeking Sigma

THE BLUE PILL

NFTs are getting some REAL utility LFG. I can finally tell my mom the jpegs that are the reason I can't make rent will be delivering me some MAJOR moola 😎. Well at least a few discounts at selected retailers...

AssetDash is a platform that gives various promotions and deals to owners of certain NFT collections such as DeGods, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Cryptopunks! These perks include Apple gift cards, discounts to Nike, Telegram Premium, and Discord Nitro.

Users just need to paste their wallet address, browse deals through their account, and claim rewards based on the collections they own. Merchants on Shopify and other e-commerce websites can also integrate with AssetDash to list their products and promotions as rewards to holders of certain NFT collections.

Well if I ever manage to get my hands on a $100k monke NFT then at least I'll have Headspace premium for free 🤑

CRYPTOPILLZ

🌐 Here's everything you need to know about the Ethereum Merge that's happening today moving the chain from proof of work to proof of stake.

🦜 If you need any more evidence that birds are going to take over the world, cockatoos have learnt how to open trash bins in Australia.

🤡 Bird app was caught lacking again when a fake Vitalik account managed to get hundreds of thousands of followers with a free Eth scam... smh

THE RED PILL

We recently stumbled across the Value Investors Club which is an exclusive forum for some of the greatest minds in stock picking. In fact Michael Burry, famed investor and profiteer of the 2008 financial crises played by Christian Bale in The Big Short, gained his initial notoriety as a medical student posting on the forum.

Anyone can browse posts but they will be 90 days delayed. If you sign up for the forum you'll get access to 45 days delayed posts LFG. If you want that delicious instant access you'll have to submit an online application that includes a favorite current investment pick.

Many popular investors such as Burry, Mohnish Pabrai, and Joel Greenblatt have posted on the site.

I'm almost certain I'll be permanently banned from the forum after I suggest a leveraged position in the esteemed asset class that is CryptoDickButts 😎

Implosions and Explosions

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

If you made it all the way here why not just subscribe 😎.

Brought to you by Koop.xyz

Welcome to Based and CryptoPilled

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you going, huh that was mildly amusing. Brought to you by the brilliant idiots Nat and V.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• WE LOOK BEAUTIFUL 😎.

• Nat's Picks for the week.

• V's Picks for the week.

• Something to bless your inbox.

WELCOME TO BASED AND CRYPTOPILLED RELOADED.

We're back and better than ever. Better colors. Better sauce. Better logo. WE ARE UP. LFG

Alot of you are new here so thank you for subscribing to the #1 newsletter on the planet. Send it to your mom. Your dad. Your grandma. B&C is for the PEOPLE. We're stoked you're joining us on this journey, so expect some heat in your inbox every week 😎.

So sit back, enjoy the ride, and humor us by subscribing if you haven't already so you can stay up to date with our latest rantings and ravings of the week.

Nat's picks of the week:

If you recognize this. You've been an OG Koop enthusiast.

🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨

It has truly been a joy building Koop and I'm so excited to share what we've been working on with ya'll :)

I wake up every day insanely excited and ready to continue building out the future of coordination online. We believe that the most compelling use case for crypto is its power to dissolve the boundaries between investors and projects, communities and holders, fans and creators.

What is Koop

A Koop is a community, led by both the creators and their members. At its core, communities are backed by a treasury created from an NFT collection or membership pass. The treasury is used to bring a community's ideas to life whether they are creating an animated web show or developing software.

The community becomes the viewers, users, and builders of their creations and are incentivized to share the content, software, or products built out of their treasuries. Communities today are social networks, whereas Koops are socioeconomic networks.

We've had the pleasure to work with musicians such as HOUNDTRACK who launched the HOUNDPACK to help grow his creative projects, NFT collections like Tweak Labs, who use community-led giveaways and events to bring the Asylum to life, and even with creators like Logan Paul through Originals DAO which has raised $2M + to launch media projects and an investment DAO.

Learn More

Twitter tweet

V's picks of the week:

Got dat dawg in me 🫡

Goblintown

Ok so first, wtf is Goblintown? Unless you're a chronically online crypto degenerate you probably haven't heard of the NFT collection Goblintown. They're an NFT project that sells these beautiful creatures for little over $1k a pop.

When Goblintown launched their first collection they had no roadmap, no discord, and no utility. The only gave their audience three pieces of information:

• 1 free + gas mint per wallet. Don't be fucking greedy. That's how we got ourselves here.

• We are reserving 1,000 goblins. Because we want to.

• No roadmap. No Discord. No utility. CC0. Contract wasn't actually written by goblins.

A truly absurd project.

The Myth of Sisyphus

Sisyphus is figure in Greek mythology who was condemned by the gods to repeat a "meaningless" task for all of eternity. Zeus has punished Sisyphus for cheating death multiple times. What was this punishment you might ask? Rolling an immense boulder up a hill only for the rock to roll back down the hill right before it reached the top. For ALL ETERNITY, sheeeeeesh.

This story was the subject of Albert Camus' book The Stranger which explored these themes through concepts such as absurdism and existentialism. Enough of boring philosophy talk. What does this have to do with Goblintown???

NFT Art In The Bear

The biggest projects during the NFT bull run centered around offering real utility and cultural value to their holders. Moonbirds has one of the most active collector communities in the space and is creating their own metaverse. Bored Ape Yacht club has increased their cultural utility through brand partnerships and celebrity ownership. Goblintown does not of that. They're just here for the meme.

Just as Sisyphus rolled that boulder up and down the hill, NFT buyers have seen their collections go to the moon only to implode shortly after. Goblintown captures the insanity of the token market beautifully removing the promise of utility and riches in place of brutal honesty and ugly jpegs. I'm looking forward to the projects that spawn from this dumpster-fire. I'll leave it at that and let Goblintown's mission statement explain the rest.

*Almost bring a tear to my eye*

Here's something to bless your inbox

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

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GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you going, huh that was mildly amusing. Brought to you by the brilliant idiots Nat and V.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• A Warm Welcome 😎.

• Nat's Picks for the week.

• V's Picks for the week.

• Something to bless your inbox.

We've been on this newsletter grind for a few months now, BUT, this post marks the first one we're sharing with the world 😎. For those of you who are new here, this is Based and Cryptopilled you're go to newsletter during a good ol' bear market. Like the old adage goes: when a man reaches the lowest point of his life he starts a podcast- go even lower and!voila! you've got yourself a newsletter.

We're the equivalent of the orchestra on the titanic, playing one last tune on a sinking ship. Your crazy uncle who lives out of an RV in Yosemite and hosts a radio show interviewing his friends who've been abducted by martians. Ultimately, some blokes with a keyboard and too much free-time.

My names Viren, but you can call me V. I'm a big fan of mitochondria and have been working in crypto for the last couple years. You can follow me on Twitter @Virxx0

I'm Natalia, but you can call me Nati. Check out the Twitter @na0xm. Believer community generated fun, Chubbicorns, and mangos.

So sit back, enjoy the ride, and humor us by subscribing if you haven't already so you can stay up to date with our latest rantings and ravings of the week.

Best business advice I've ever received. Take notes kids.

I'ma keep it a buck with y'all and say that crypto isn't doing too hot this week. So I'll let Viren spread the FUD and tell ya'll the wonderful tale of Donald Mastick.

You might be wondering, why tf should I care about Mr. Mastick. Well our boy Donald was part of the Manhattan Project, the United States effort to build the first atomic bomb during WWII.

Donald Mastick Manhattan Project ID Photo

On a side note, everyone who worked on the Manhattan Project might have had the hardest ID photos in all of history.

Los Alamos Labs ID Photos

At the ripe young age of 23 Mr. Mastick was working at the chemistry division of Los Alamos Labs studying the properties of plutonium, which at the time was only available in the synthetic form in minuscule quantities.

One night while Mr. Mastic was working with his lab partner, Arthur Wahl, on analyzing 10 milligrams of plutonium (a good chuck of all available plutonium in the world at the time), the vial exploded with some of its contents making their way to Mastick's mouth.

Yes. Donald Mastick had just ingested a solid amount of all the available plutonium on planet earth. His face was scrubbed and he went through a thorough decontamination process, but days later his breath would still set the needle on an ionization chamber off the charts even 6 feet away.

He eventually had to have his stomach pumped to retrieve the remaining plutonium, but remnants still remained detectable in his body even 30 years later.

So if you're ever feeling bad for yourself, just remember you weren't the guy who accidentally ate plutonium.

If you want to learn more about the strange history of plutonium, check out The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments by William Moss and Robert Eckhardt

POV trying to comfort the average Luna hodler.

Ok friends. Today we are going to talk about the most infamous man on the internet. Unless you've been living in Ohio, you've probably heard of Andrew Tate. He's an influencer / self-help guru who has taken the internet by storm the last couple months and was recently banned off of most major social media platforms. Why did he get banned? Well that's its own can of worms for another day, but how did he get so big? Now that's an interesting questions which involves cookies, alleged pyramid schemes, and a case study on one of the most dedicated fanbases on the internet.

Here's the story of how Mr. Tate took over the internet and bootstrapped he most loyal community on the web.

A Discord Poweruser

Prior to breaking onto the scene on most major social media platforms, Tate's toolstack consisted of two major pieces. The platform we've all come to love and hate, Discord, as well as a digital goods marketplace Gumroad.

Gumroad is one of the easiest ways to sell digital good online. Started by Sahil Lavingia in September of 2011, Gumroad seeks to help anyone earn their first dollar online. And that is exactly what it did. Countless people have made a living selling digital products from Iconsets and Ebooks to Notion Templates and Private Discord Access. Gumroad has created a robust tool-stack consisting of email-lists, payment processors, and easy to set up affiliate marketing programs to help digital creators market their products. That last tool will be important later on 👀.

A University of Hustlers?!?

Tate's product "Hustlers University", an online school based in Discord to teach people how to make money online, initially grew a cult following on Gumroad. Through utilizing video streaming features on Discord such as "Townhall" and "Voice-Channels" Tate was able to build an intimate relationship with his audience over the course of a few months.

By offering lessons on a variety of digital services such as copywriting and e-commerce to more ambiguous skills in "stocks" and "crypto" Tate created an enticing offering for his potential customers. For the low price of $49.99 you could learn how to get rich and get one step closer to living the life of your favorite influencer, Tate.

The Clip Industrial Complex

Let's take a step back for a bit and explore a phenomena that has become increasingly popular and influential amongst Twitch, Anime, and K-pop fans.

If you've spent any time on Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok you've probably been introduced to new creators and artists from fan-uploaded clips. Creator's true fans will go the extra mile and re-upload content from their favorite channels or artists. This comes in the forms of anime edits, videos of BTS practicing dancing, and clips from multi-hour Twitch broadcasts.

If you're not getting the idea, check out this video showing the vast array of popular youtube channels which have grown their audience by simply uploading clips of the popular Twitch Streamer HasanAbi.

Keep in mind very few of these channels ever actually interface or coordinate with the original creator much less get paid for doing this somewhat tedious work. They simply highlight their favorite part of their content! What's the incentive? Well for most fans they find the joy in connecting with other fans, building an audience around their support of a creator. On Tiktok, for example, entire trends are often started from audio clips of popular TV shows or youtube videos that fans post.

Here are a few examples from the TV show Breaking Bad and the anime Death Note

They know my voice #fyp #gym #gymtok

https://www.tiktok.com/@officialmuscle/video/7135143998745791749?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7135979389830186538

They know my voice #PrimeDayDreamDeals

https://www.tiktok.com/@daddypat0/video/7119613018090097966?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7135979389830186538

#POV: While Thor is off world Loki decides to take over Asgard, but his brother stops him before it’s too late…#thor #loki #marvel #fypシ #duet #AerieREAL #asgard

https://www.tiktok.com/@noahjaywood/video/7075814036503366955?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7135979389830186538

POV: he lost the inheritance to his brother, but he plans revenge with his partner… an undercover cop

https://www.tiktok.com/@quinickle/video/7077964743280971050?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7135979389830186538

People who remix this content need not have any knowledge of the original, they simply can participate in the joy of contributing to the trend.

Ok, so how does this relate to Tate again?

Well like I said before, the generation of these clips is extremely valuable for the original creators of the content. It exposes them to new audiences, increases their digital footprint, and most importantly its completely free.

What if a creator was able to reward their audience for generating these clips and share their success with the true fans that made it happen?

This is exactly what Andrew Tate did. Here's how it worked.

• Members of the Hustlers University discord server had the ability to tune into multi-hour speaking events hosted by Andrew and his brother.

• He had small but loyal audience eager to make money online who bought into his message.

• He then started the HU Affiliate Program and gave precise instructions to his members how to market his product, a membership to Hustlers University.

• Through the Gumroad Affiliate Program, members would generate their own unique links to sign up for HU and post them on new social media accounts they made.

• Fans then chopped and edited small clips from his Discord Speaker series and posted them all over Youtube, Instagram, and most importantly Tiktok.

• Some viewers of this content would convert into members of Hustlers University, whose membership fee would be split amongst Tate and his affiliate.

• As new members joined HU gained more affiliate promoters who in part got even more new members to join.

This flywheel scaled tremendously eventually leading to tens of millions of dollars of revenue monthly for HU, Andrew Tate being one of the most searched people on Google, and a loyal fanbase that still reposts his clips to this day.

My thoughts: Tate is a controversial figure, however, his rise to prominence is a case study for any creator, company, or artist looking to build an audience. Include your fans in your success! When you share a piece of the pie the pie WILL get bigger over time. I think the opportunity for creators to leverage their fanbases and make them a more active part of their growth holds countless opportunities. Tate created a decentralized community to promote his personal brand. When will you?

The motto 😎

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

Did we put some 🔥 in your inbox?

• 🔥🔥🔥🔥 LFG

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GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you going, huh that was mildly amusing. Brought to you by the brilliant idiots Nat and V. 

Here's the breakdown for today: 

• Nat's Picks for the week.

• V's Picks for the week.

• Something to bless your inbox.

One of the greatest photo collections I've ever seen. By the photographer and artist, Kerry Skarbakka. 

The new Shibuya artwork that just dropped 🔥🔥🔥

Shibuya is a collaborative storytelling project by Pplpleasr the artist behind many iconic NFT projects such as the Uniswap 3D unicorn. Her new project centers around giving token holders the ability to decide how an animated series she is creating will progress.

At the end of every episode, viewers are greeted with two beautiful paths which they vote on to decide the fate of the main character, Mirai. Follow their page, visit the website, and honestly, buy their pass. One of the most exciting projects I've seen to date. 

Twitter tweet

Here's Emily (aka Pplpleasr) talking about the revolutionary nature of fundraising with crypto. 

Twitter tweet

Mood...

Look!! The wait is finally over!! Pretty video 🤩🤩🤩. 

Twitter tweet

Matic's been coming out with some HEAT lately. I don't know who is on their graphics team but if they made a theme park from this ad I would 100p get a ticket. 

Here's a summary of their new release: 

• ZK EVM inherits the security of Ethereum while increasing throughput and radically reducing fees. (zk stand for zero knowledge proofs)

• EVM-equivalence means that any smart contract or dev tool that you can use on Ethereum can be used on Polygon

• Like most L2 solutions, zkEVM "rolls up" a batch of transactions and uses a ZKP to validate those transactions on Ethereum.

Polygon zkEVM is permissionless–anyone can use it. It’s also open-source, meaning you can trust the code, rather than trusting Polygon. Curious to see if these scaling solutions catch on in the coming years or whether competing chains will make them obsolete natively. We shall see. 

Here's something to bless your inbox: The Japanese poster of Empire Strikes Back 😎

See y'all next week, 

V and Nat

Did we put some 🔥 in your inbox?

• 🔥🔥🔥🔥 LFG

• 🔥🔥 Eh pretty decent

• 🔥 Traaaasssshhh kid.

Click on one of these and let us know 😎

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you going, huh that was mildly amusing. Brought to you by the brilliant idiots Nat and V.

Gonna watch Stranger Things

Here's the breakdown for today:

• A victory lap.

• Nat's Picks for the week.

• V's Picks for the week.

• Something to bless your inbox.

Don't say that we don't deliver y'all some good alpha. Remember our inaugural newsletter that got released on June 24?!? The one where we dropped this gem:

Well God was on our side and this project PUMPED. Getting 10x returns in a bear market?!? Who would have thought.

God Hates NFTees Floor

Just don't look at the rest of the graph...

No need to thank us. Just subscribe.

Web2 me vs web3 me :P

Stumbled across a great piece of design history that connects the innovative artist, Pablo Picasso, and the prolific technology behemoth Apple.

Introducing Pablo Picasso's Bull

Picasso created a series of 11 lithograph stone prints of a bull which each successive illustration being less complex. This forced him to think about the intrinsic visual elements of a bull that made is just that, a bull.

This design philosophy was carried over at Apple where the design team emphasizes simplifying the objects they create to their bare bone functionality. Quite an amazing feat for devices created from human imagination.

If you want to learn more about the intersection of abstract art and technology, check out this fantastic twitter thread by Trung Phan :)

Twitter tweet

I take you out to dinner and pull this out WYD?!?!

Remember all those suspect project you aped into just to get rug-pulled? Well looks like karma is on your side. The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently filed a suit against the creators of Baller Ape club and 5 other projects that rugged their buyers.

Seriously what poor soul bought this s#!t 😭😭😭

Here's a breakdown of what's happening:

• All of these cases are being filed under "digital currency related fraud" and the investigation was done in collaboration with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the DOJ.

• The second case involved a “global cryptocurrency-based Ponzi scheme that generated approximately $100 million from investors.”

• The third case was a fraudulent Initial Coin Offering (ICO) executed by Michael Stollery, a Californian, who created Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS) a digital asset investment platform.

My thoughts: Glad to see the DOJ finally starting to clamp down on the BS projects. Hopefully a stricter regulatory environment will bring along with it more stability and credibility to the digital asset markets. Until then you'll still catch me getting rugged on the daily 😎.

Here's something to bless your inbox: Parents listen to their deceased son's heart beating in the chest of the man whose life it saved.

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

Did we put some 🔥 in your inbox?

Click on one of these and let us know 😎

• 🔥🔥🔥🔥 LFG

• 🔥🔥 Eh pretty decent

• 🔥 Traaaasssshhh kid.

GM ladies and gentleman and welcome back to B&C, the newsletter that'll have you going, huh that was mildly amusing. Brought to you by the brilliant idiots Nat and V.

Here's the breakdown for today:

• Some new topics.

• Nat's Picks for the week.

• V's Picks for the week.

• Something to bless your inbox.

With Eth teetering around 1k we've decided to expand our horizons beyond the markets. Maybe we'll become neuroscientists for the week, art critics, OR maybe we'll talk about how to assemble the greatest big mac you've ever eaten.

So before you get margin called just subscribe to our newsletter. That way when we're all making quarter pounders and chicken nuggets, we can at least have a good laugh and maybe learn something new.

I aspire to one day be like the horseshoe crab. No patches, no v2, no updates. Pure vibes for 445 million years.

Watched an interview between Patrick Collision and Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). A must listen for anyone who wants to learn a little bit more about the enigmatic inner workings of the crypto exchange FTX.

Some interesting things I learnt:

• FTX operated with 2-3 engineers during its first year of operation and still managed to grow the platform's transaction volume billions of dollars.

• Even today, FTX has roughly 30 developers working full time on the exchange.

• SBF views the biggest pro of blockchain applications as their interoperability. "It's bad that you can't natively view a tweet on Facebook".

CEO of Binance, CZ, might have dropped one of the most based tweets of the year 🫡

Twitter tweet

What makes it even funnier is that he never actually took this photo, he just photoshopped himself onto some dude in a stock image 😭

Forget Indeed, this the only job search site I need 😎.

Had the pleasure of learning about one of the OG's of typography this week, Edward Fella. Personally the thought of Times New Roman vs Arial doesn't get me fired up, but this guy sure is one interesting fella.

I'm sorry for that.

Edward Fella giving a lecture to design students.

Here's what you need to know about the 🐐 of typography.

• He was known for breaking every rule of type design and often redesigned entire font classes by hand such as sans-serif.

• He was nicknamed the "king of zing" by his contemporaries.

• He is the father of "American folk art typography" and frequently utilizes hand drawn elements in his style.

Words can't really do justice to his work so here are a couple of my favorite pieces from his collection.

My thoughts: Before entering the world of software and design, I never particularly thought that much about fonts, colors, shapes, or any other elements that we view visually. As I've come to learn, our perception has a massive affect over extremely tangible aspects of our existence such as our mood and perception of pain. Look no further than the Picture Superiority Effect or the Phantom Limb Mirror Box to see this in action.

Here's a great Fella quote to bless your inbox.

See y'all next week,

V and Nat

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