Ep: 233 - Boys Club Live: Nicest Weather in the USA, Slop Cannon Kids, GPT-2 Image Test Drive, plus guests Anthony Soohoo (MoneyGram CEO) and Stefen Deleveaux (Oasis Onchain)

[00:29] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:33] And we're live. Hi, Dina. Hi, Kate. How's it going? It's so great to be here with you. [00:43] I'm so happy to have you. And all of you watching. Uh-huh, uh-huh, of course. We are doing a little virtual live stream today, but we're going to have just as much, if not more fun. [00:56] doing it virtually. [00:59] I am very excited about our guests. Just a quick little note on what we have coming up today. So we are going to have Stefan Delavo, who many of you might know from Twitter.

He is the Oasis on-chain founder, and he's going to chat with us about that and what he's up to in the Caribbean, and also Octant's creator program that he... [01:22] went through and is going to chat with us about that. [01:24] And then Anthony Suhu, MoneyGram CEO, we're going to have a very... [01:29] We have a money conversation. [01:30] I love it. C-suite. [01:32] Yeah. [01:33] There it is. Yeah. [01:36] I have a question for you. I'm sitting here at my desk and... [01:41] I have a [01:43] Mac. [01:45] uh, [01:46] cartridge what would we call that what would we call this i don't know it looks like a hockey buck to me enlighten me oh a mac um well it has like a little stain on the front so i don't want to like do a mac oh makeup i'm thinking apple mac i was like is this a mac mini the new version

[02:02] it's the Mac extra mini compact with the mirror [02:09] It has a mirror and I have it here on my desk mostly for live stream touch-ups because I don't like a shiny. Right. [02:18] I had to put a mat on because I was very shiny. Yeah, you got the primer. [02:23] Nice. And, um, but I'm, I'm, [02:27] suddenly realizing that it's maybe very old. [02:31] like, [02:32] And I'm wondering what the expiration date is on compacts, on makeup. [02:37] There is. There is an expiration. I had to be told this.

[02:41] okay by a friend what i was talking ballpark because [02:44] I would say [02:46] My guess was a year. [02:48] And I was told, "Maybe don't push it." [02:51] Because it is chemicals you're putting on your face. [02:54] Thank you. [02:55] So. [02:57] I was here. We're on year. We're I'm on like year two, three of some things, especially if it's mascara. My friends said, no, no, no, no, no. Do not put anything old near your eyes. [03:09] That I could see that I could see mascara. I could see, um, I went through an eye trauma earlier this year.

Um, [03:16] That was really... [03:19] I, [03:20] We're better for it. You live, you learn, you experience things. I just wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. And so I'm very present to I... [03:31] hygiene and care now there you go i would not put old mascara on but an old mac [03:40] Mac Mini here [03:41] I mean, we'll see if you break out potentially. I don't wish it at all. I rebuke that. But because your skin looks great. Thanks. I'm mad at it. It is doing its job. It is doing its job.

Okay, quick shout out to our first sponsor here, Octant. Our supporting sponsor, Octant, is well known in Ethereum circles for its tireless contribution to the Ethereum ecosystem through research and millions of dollars in grants and public goods funding. [04:11] is their product era. Octant previously launched DeFi Vaults, which enable orgs and communities to build sustainable funding systems through these yield generating products. We've talked about them a lot on this podcast, so you'll be familiar. They've also opened up funding participation to the wider Ethereum community. You can help decide which impactful projects in Ethereum should get funded using your ETH to help allocate a big pool of matched funds, of matching funds, by participating [04:42] Yield funding, impactful projects is a good sustainable model for our industry.

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Okay, so our first little story here before we bring on some guests. I have come across this Twitter account, which I love. [05:26] And it's every day. [05:28] He... [05:29] posts this a graphic like this that says and today's is the nicest weather in the usa today basically it's a map of the united states this is incredible i know and he says the nicest weather in the usa today will be in madison wisconsin and rockford illinois windows open kind of guys kind of day he gave a little editorial at the end but basically what we're looking at for people who don't have um who are perhaps listening is a map in the united states at the continental united states and it basically has [05:56] a key on the right that's basically like pristine, perfect, beautiful, nice, and fair weather.

And it's sort of mapped over... [06:05] the map and you can see places where it's going to be beautiful, nice fair. So, [06:10] I love it. Every day there's a new one. [06:12] I'm waiting for Nashville to get pristine because it's a gorgeous day here. [06:18] And [06:20] And I'm in North Carolina right now. [06:22] And... [06:23] It looks like you have fair, just fair for you today. Well, can you zoom in on this key? Because what is... [06:30] the [06:32] We're talking in Fahrenheit, people, so sorry for you, Celsius.

[06:36] Let's see. Oh, he doesn't have a key for what he's okay. We don't have a sense for how nice weather outlook with our lives. We're just trusting nice weather outlook. I will say yes, I think. [06:52] Should if Ryan Hall y'all were to be a national today, I think he would change his his. [06:59] I agree. [07:00] If he went on one of your morning wellness walks, he'd be like, you know what? [07:04] fully [07:05] Christine top of the charts. Yeah, it is interesting. Um, [07:10] i do wonder what it's a combination of [07:12] cloud, like I assume sun, [07:15] - Yeah.

[07:16] hitting like a 72 and sunny and then probably like [07:21] UV index, stuff like that. [07:23] A slight breeze. People love a very light breeze. Nice. [07:28] You always hear it. What's the perfect weather? Oh, I just want warm, [07:33] Sunny, but too sunny, slightly cloudy with a nice breeze. [07:39] That sounds nice. Well, if you're in Madison, Wisconsin, please do let us know if you're having the nicest weather today. Oh, you know what we can do? We could look it up on the weather app. [07:51] Madison, Wisconsin, right?

Yeah. Tell us what it's looking like in Madison, Wisconsin. Okay. I feel sorry for our friends in the Pacific Northwest. They didn't even qualify for a single color. [08:02] They're just in gray. [08:04] Oh. [08:05] Oh, this is kind of crazy. We got 58 people. [08:09] degrees Fahrenheit. [08:11] Precipitation, 0%, humidity, 66%, and wind, 5 miles per hour. [08:17] That's a little cold for me. So I'm a little cold for me as well. So I mean, now maybe we don't trust. What is his name? [08:25] Ryan Hall, y'all. Yeah, we need some more transparency on his, what he's how he's qualifying these assignments.

But overall, I think it's directionally correct. But yes, some more detail, just a big, loved seeing that this morning. And then this one, I, I, [08:46] want to share with you is something that came up on my TikTok this morning that he reposted. I guess I'm in kind of like a weather weather way lately. You're also following Ryan Hall y'all on TikTok. [08:57] I'm not. No, this is a different creator. Okay. This is a guy who's in upstate New York. If I play it, we'll be able to hear the sound because if not, then...

[09:06] Let's see. I can hear it. [09:16] for viewers, I mean, for listeners. [09:20] It's a guy who's fully monitoring the thunderstorm warning situation. He has probably 15 different... [09:32] monitors clocks and radios and radios yeah that are um [09:37] tuned in to the forecast. [09:40] alerts system and he's like sort of showing all the different um [09:44] Thank you. [09:45] All the different words. I'm freaking out. [09:47] Really incredible stuff. I really you're locked in on the weather watch and I respect it. [09:53] I am locked in on WeatherWatch.

Okay, so that's our first bit here. Let's just do a quick shout out to Vercel. [10:03] Love her song. [10:04] we love versell um if you are a startup building with agents look no further than versell their agentic infrastructure gives you and your agents everything you need to ship and if you're supported by one of their hundreds of vc or accelerator partners you have access to exclusive discounts and benefits you can deploy faster scale globe scale globally and ship world-class ai products check out the platform thousands of companies use from day zero to ipo at

com backslash [10:33] startups. [10:35] I want to share. I went into my Vercel account [10:40] um in preparation for this podcast today and [10:46] I share it with my son, who is now a slop cannon. A what? Fully. You know the slop cannon? Like, there was this post that went viral... [11:00] probably last month and it was like there's four jobs there's gonna be four jobs left and it was like [11:06] The first one was slop cannon, which is basically like someone who's just constantly like... [11:10] shipping out, shipping stuff.

Idea guy that's like shipping stuff using AI. There was also hot person, which is like basically like your BDA sales person. And then there was like adult in the room. I remember it was one. And then there was a fourth one that I'm not remembering what the four, but it was like basically in the age of AI, there's these four jobs that are left. [11:27] And [11:29] He, my son is for sure slop cannon material because he, I went on to my Roussel and I was like, what is this? And.

[11:39] It's... [11:40] Which Greek God are you? Fully chat GPT generated quiz. [11:47] Who is BuzzFeed when you have slop cannons? Exactly. Exactly. So I know that he's doing Greek God stuff in fourth grade. So that's where this came from. And he basically, it's just like a whole... [11:59] Did he say what he got? [12:01] He did not like it. This just got this just got deployed on Vercel and forgot about incredible stuff. Incredible stuff. Honestly, I would. Can you send me the link? I will. I will. It's it's elemental stones.

I'll send it over to you. Great. [12:16] And I recognized it was him because he also has a Minecraft mod that he calls Elemental Stone. So I knew it was under the same creative vision. So anyway, we genuinely love Rusell in this house. We use it across family members, across generations. It really does help us just like get ideas out into the world. So... [12:40] Love that they're... [12:41] Ask him to make a Harry Potter one next. That'll be huge. I will. I will. [12:48] yeah, this is the type of thing where it like, he'll be like, okay, now I'm [12:53] just [12:54] he, since he uses Claude now, it just like whips it up.

And I'm like, no, we have to, we have to, [12:59] learn go through the process proof of work proof of work yeah and like you can't just [13:04] it [13:05] You can't just have Claude [13:07] you can't you can't have cloud do all the thinking so that's actually a big lesson the tool for your thinking exactly exactly so i'm trying my best there but it is really an uphill battle when you have someone who's as eager [13:20] as he is to use all these tools, you know, he's like, I just want to go fast.

You know, I mean, like mother, like son. [13:29] So, okay. The other thing that I wanted to do with you today is, um, [13:35] There is a new thing that ChatTaput has launched. [13:39] I think... [13:40] monday gpt2 [13:42] which is their next generation image creation tool. [13:47] OK. [13:48] Right. [13:48] I wanted to test it out live on the show. [13:52] I just want to say I have not used it at all. And I, [13:57] I also... [13:58] have not done very much with image everything that i've done with image has been like [14:02] You've done a lot with it.

I've used... [14:06] I've never-- yes, I have used chat maybe last year. I haven't used it in about a year for images, because I moved on to like Gemini or Nano Banana. [14:15] That's okay. [14:16] Okay. So interesting to see. [14:20] Shout out Tech Bimbo who taught me the best prompts. [14:24] She's the... When it comes to this Chachi Biti 2 stuff, I feel like I'm getting all my information from her, whether she's quote tweeting someone else or... [14:33] saying what it can do and what it can't do. I have also not used it.

So, um, [14:38] We'll see. [14:39] we'll see um yeah shout out to tech bimbo um she is who uh yeah exactly i'm seeing [14:45] most coverage and commentary from her [14:49] And... [14:50] her take on it is like [14:53] It's really good. And if she's saying that, [14:57] then [14:58] I trust her opinion. I do trust her opinion too. Okay. So I'm going to share my chat [15:04] screen here. And then what I did find was this [15:09] prompt [15:11] Oh, yes. This is like AI generated image ad libs. [15:16] or it's like fill in the noun, fill in the adjective.

Exactly. So I think we do that together and we learn together. [15:23] Great. [15:24] I think I'm just going to copy and paste this here. It feels like... And you have it updated? [15:29] You have your chat updated to where you can, because mine wouldn't let me. [15:33] this morning when I tried. Okay, why? Wait, wait, wait, wait. Only because, um, [15:37] I mean, I have my password written down. [15:41] Elsewhere in my apartment back home in New York. And I was like, I can't download anything to my laptop because I do not have...

[15:50] knowledge of my very high level password. Okay. Okay. We have a credentials issue with Kate here. [16:00] No problem. I don't know. I think this is part of the learning together is that [16:05] we're all going to figure out how to do it. I'm excited. I think this is [16:10] I'm not sure how to select [16:16] image generation in Chachapiti? Like, is there a... [16:21] Is there a special... I... from when I was using it, you would just say generate an image. Okay. I would just say generate an image in the main chat, so I don't know if it's changed since.

Okay. Okay. [16:33] Okay, let's just try it first in the main chat and then see what we're doing. Okay, so create a polish multi-page multiple images brand kit for a company called... Can we... Oh, well, no, I was going to say, can we use Oscar's... [16:47] What's the word he's been using? Oh, elemental stones. Yes. Okay. Okay. Let's do a brand kit for a company called elemental stones. The brand should feel... [17:00] Hmm. [17:01] Mm. [17:03] How did you describe like Minecraft? [17:06] Um, [17:07] I think playful [17:11] uh, [17:12] science-y?

I mean, is that a... [17:16] Is that an adjective? Sci-fi, maybe? [17:20] Okay, sci-fi. Anyone who is listening who has ever played Minecraft is it is blocky. Like that's really my comment down below. Yeah, it is blocky very like cubism. [17:32] Wow. [17:35] - Keep, grow. [17:38] Maybe just put like, [17:40] tech forward. [17:41] Okay. [17:43] Because I feel like chat would just be like, okay, great. We're going to add some cyberistic. Okay. I'm going to put like gaming, video game. [17:51] Sure, sure. [17:52] Wow, this is hard. Okay, blending.

Okay, what's a cool way we need to we need inspiration blending something inspiration a with inspiration B say Minecraft and [18:06] greek mythology okay great okay use a visual style visual identity um okay i'm gonna say bold [18:18] - Hmm. [18:19] Good word. [18:20] folds, [18:21] um, [18:22] I liked restrained. [18:25] I... [18:27] Thank you. [18:28] we get to pick our colors or are they going to pick them for us? You know what? I think we should do this for Boys Club. I think we should do this for Boys Club.

Okay. Man, I was going like random. I know. I know. I know. I know. I just think we'll be more familiar with [18:40] with some of these descriptors good or bad compared to what we have to chat to do better than us um okay so for boys club it says create a polished multi-page brand kit for coming up boys club [18:52] The brand should feel... [18:55] Um, [18:58] internet [19:01] Native. [19:02] Mm-hmm. [19:03] smart [19:04] accessible, [19:06] Mm. [19:08] Fun. [19:09] Mm. [19:09] blending, what's that? [19:12] No, I was going to say, I thought you were going to keep going with those words.

[19:17] Blending. What inspiration? What inspiration? What inspiration? Can I put like [19:23] Craigslist as one of the instructions. Oh my god, that's amazing. Facebook Marketplace. Right. Facebook Marketplace. Blending Facebook Marketplace and... [19:35] um bloomberg and vice yeah blending bloomberg with craigslist with vice perfect perfect [19:43] Okay. [19:44] Use a bold visual identity. Okay. Color direction. This is where you, where's where you come in. [19:50] Okay. [19:51] Um... [19:54] I would say simple. [19:55] Okay. [19:57] Thank you. [19:58] Internet native. [19:59] is also good. Okay. [20:02] And [20:04] Mm-mm. [20:05] maybe like monochromatic.

[20:07] - Okay. - 'Cause we don't really, we don't have too many colors. [20:10] Okay. [20:11] *laughs* [20:13] Form language, clean. [20:15] Okay, shapes, let's see. [20:20] I think [20:20] This works! [20:22] That works. [20:24] Well, I think we need to choose one. [20:26] Oh, [20:27] No, no, sorry. The form language. We can keep what they have here. [20:32] But I think you want to keep all of these. Let's do just clean geometry. [20:36] Okay, great. [20:37] Great. And then... [20:39] type of having style. [20:41] variable fonts, let's say. Yeah, let's see what they give us.

I'd be very curious. [20:46] Um, motion cues... [20:50] Subtle. [20:52] I would say. [20:53] Yeah. [20:54] That works. [20:55] Imagery style. [20:58] We've gone very-- [21:00] analog, can we say analog meets [21:03] the internet. [21:05] Okay. [21:08] Okay, the overall mood should feel mood stack, five to eight descriptors. Can you add an analog? Can you say like analog handwritten? Okay. Okay. [21:17] Great. Curious to see what they'll give us. Okay. [21:20] Thank you. [21:21] The overall mood stack should feel, um, [21:25] mood stack, five to eight descriptors. [21:28] Okay. [21:30] Um, [21:33] I would say human created.

[21:35] okay [21:36] or analog whichever word you think would be better. Okay. [21:41] Um, [21:42] process-driven, [21:44] Say more. Like... [21:46] because it's human, like we see [21:49] charts and graphs and lines and scratches. [21:54] So, [21:55] I'm gonna put showing the work and I'm gonna put... [21:57] graphs, charts, [22:00] Okay, and World C is? I do think it probably should be this like digital tech. [22:08] Contemporary digital. Okay, great. Yeah. [22:11] Okay, include, this is all in the template, so I'm assuming we just keep it. Include product obsession, da da da, immersive retail, cross platform brand application.

[22:20] "Avoid generic AI gradients, overuse Teclo aesthetics, cluttered layouts, weak hierarchy, stock-like visuals." Okay, this is all from the template that I pulled from this guy's tweet, so I'm just gonna keep this here. - Great. - And then it looks like he has a prompt here that's very specific as to what the output is going to be. [22:38] it says stuff like product and packaging i don't know how it's going to deal with that because we don't have products but maybe we'll create one we'll see um imagery and art direction color and typography that's the stuff um that you would expect to see in a brand brand [22:52] book, but also has this thing, applications.

So website, mobile UI, posters, social, retail, spatial. Again, we're still in just the template that he provided. [23:02] um ensure strong visual hierarchy push originality over safety bold but controlled experimentation cohesive system across all pages the result should feel like a real high-end creative studio brand kit not generic ai output okay i'm going to send the prompt and let's see what we get back [23:23] It is thinking, thinking, thinking, and it is, um, prompting me, uh, with an upsell to buy their more expensive subscription, which I'm not going to do.

No, thank you. Not today. I appreciate the effort. Um, [23:39] I love that I said hang tight. [23:42] Yeah, it's like, okay, I'm working, firing up some GPUs. [23:47] We're searching one. They're definitely searching Pinterest right now. [23:50] Yeah. Also, should they search for... [23:54] too closely against um boys clubs they'll be very well that's why i was like are we going to do network or are they just going to look up boys club right [24:02] Right, right, right, right. The same thing that we have. Interesting. Interesting. But hey, if I didn't do the work.

[24:09] you know and someone's like where's your brand can i'm like oh yeah gotta gotta make that [24:16] boom let's see what it does for us [24:18] um okay it's still we're still generating here so we're probably on like 45 seconds which is totally fine just [24:26] No worries. It's got a lot to line up. We forgot to add, take your time, make no mistakes. So who's to say it might make some mistakes? [24:37] Oh, okay. We're still thinking. In the meantime, some [24:41] Some shower thoughts I've been having around seeing some of the new image generation stuff, which people are saying is like super powerful, is if we...

[24:50] similar to the text output that these AI engines are creating. [24:55] Over time, if more and more people are using this type of thing for... [25:01] image creation and brand identity creation, which [25:04] by definition, all of this is pulling from [25:08] past work [25:09] that [25:10] has been created like it's it's basically pulling from [25:15] what we've done before, then I fear [25:18] it leaves very little room for like net new creation. - Right. And I would say this is a good, for someone like me, who has made plenty of brand kits, [25:29] for [25:30] brands, you're going, [25:32] You spend a while just...

[25:35] thinking and playing around with things. And if this could just be a tool to do that and go, oh, visually, I don't have the 30 minutes to compile it all and see what it looks like myself. It just compiles it real quick for you and go, oh, actually, I'm [25:49] let's switch this out and move this around. And then you make your human decisions. [25:54] on what looks good and what looks bad. Right. Based on this, you don't just go with what it gives you, but it is a really fun, quick tool to play around with and see...

[26:04] how you can tweak it. [26:06] Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Okay. We have our... [26:17] We have our [26:19] Really concerning first pass at a brand kit here from Chachi PT featuring Jessica Simpson. I don't know. Why? Ariana, what are you doing here? You know what? She's a businesswoman. Okay. She makes a lot of money. Okay. Okay. I don't know who this other guy is, but since he's next to Jessica Simpson, I have to assume that he's also someone famous that they put into this. This is incredible. [26:49] this separately on its own.

Totally. I don't know. I think it went too hard in monochromatic. I fear. I was hoping it would give it. Yeah, I fear. You're right. I was hoping it would give us a monochromatic of our blues. [27:02] Like internet blues, you have your like bright royal, your cerulean, your text bubble. We should have maybe been a little bit more explicit here. While it's finishing its generation, what I will say is... [27:16] Claude [27:17] design also launched this past weekend maybe next week we can try um we can try giving claude design a test

[27:25] A test run. [27:27] Yeah. [27:28] people were saying that it's like going to eat figma's lunch and [27:32] that [27:34] Possibly. [27:35] possibly [27:36] And... [27:37] I will say, [27:38] the bar is low for it to compete with chatubiti based on this output but maybe it's a user error maybe our prompt was bad i mean we didn't think too much on it that's true [27:50] So I like the fill in the blanks and we'll see what it gives us. But overall, if you swapped out these images, [27:59] It's not that bad and added our blues.

[28:02] Okay, I think you're being very generous. Let me just give folks who are just listening a [28:08] voiceover on what this is. It's two people. One is Jessica Simpson and one is a man in his [28:16] Cosplaying Steve Jobs. Just both in black turtlenecks. Everyone's in black turtlenecks. It is, right. It is... [28:26] You can't see the main logo because they made it black and it's overlaying the black turtleneck. It's being blocked over. It's completely cut off. It's a major design faux pas. [28:35] There's a burnt out car on a beach.

Sick. [28:39] We love the juxtaposition here. It's like every Vogue photo shoot, they're like, put a girl standing on a chair in the beach because, you know, it's different. [28:49] Why is this here? [28:51] okay i will say this bottom corner here is where they tried to pull in the handwritten um it looks like there's [28:57] Someone did, or not someone, Chachupiti did like a... [29:01] prototype it looks like a hand-drawn like website prototype and not bad not bad and then there's like a [29:09] Taylor Swift looking album cover. Yeah, that's like glitched out, which, okay.

[29:15] like some sort of zine [29:17] that is very generic very this is a canva template for sure canva template and then a a [29:25] mock-up of a laptop and mobile phone that has boys club on it and like why what i want to say is like [29:32] England, like the map of... [29:34] or like southern Spain. This feels like PowerPoint template. Yeah. [29:40] um presentation so anyway that's where we landed i i oh we have some more here okay [29:47] i mean honestly i don't hate this this is a looks like me i saw i saw the potential and you came at me [29:55] But I would be able to take this and then be like, okay, this totally doesn't work.

This doesn't totally work. And then you pull and rework the things that you envisioned. [30:04] Yeah. [30:05] Totally. [30:07] Okay, now we have some typography stuff. I mean, I think [30:11] It's giving a lot of blacks. We're in a ground height. We need to redo the problem for sure. [30:16] I didn't mean like black and white monochrome. Chat, she didn't mean that. I didn't mean that, chat. [30:24] And again, we have like some... [30:27] the burnt out car has, has, [30:29] has persisted across the different pages here but yeah some typography stuff [30:35] I don't hate this.

I don't hate this. [30:37] fonts. They didn't give us any funky fonts. [30:40] Nothing cyberistic. Oh, there's a cool hat here. [30:44] I mean, just another hat with a word on it. Okay. That people will be like sick. See, this is taste. We have a floating rock. I actually don't mind that as like a surrealist thing. I think that's kind of cool. [30:59] we have some generic packaging [31:02] okay a car still there again the car persists great [31:05] I don't know. Like... Notebook, badge, box. I don't think this is like...

[31:11] and fine. [31:13] The voice of credit card is funny. Um, Oh, that is funny. [31:16] We should next time give it specific [31:19] product and packaging ideas. [31:22] Okay, well, I'm going to drop this. [31:25] into the chat. We can see what we think about it. I see we have our first guest here, Stefan, so I'm going to bring him up. But really a fun experimentation. I want to do Claude Design next. [31:36] This should be a continued segment. [31:37] Yeah, I feel like we maybe didn't give chat the best.

[31:43] prompt, so. [31:45] No, absolutely not. That's on us. Sorry, chat. No worries. We'll come back and we'll fix for V2. [31:51] Exactly. Okay. Let's bring, let's bring Stefan up. [31:57] Thank you. [31:59] I'll jump. [32:00] Hi. That burnt out car on the beach. [32:04] There was something there. You liked it. You liked it. You found it moving. I mean, I kind of, it had me thinking and I said, that's all good art does, you know? Yeah. So we'll go with that. We'll go with it. So nice to see you.

[32:18] It's been a while. It's been a while. It's been a long time. So, Stefan Delaveau, founder of the Oasis Group and Oasis on Chain, working on frontier tech for the Caribbean and third time podcast guest, I think. [32:35] Yeah, yeah, that sounds right. I think so. I think you're our first third timer. [32:41] So that's a big... [32:43] a big honor. [32:44] for me we're doing we're doing good um how's it going how you been uh surviving in 2026 you know yeah [32:54] I've just been home in the Bahamas for the most part.

[32:59] Yeah. Tell us for those who haven't met you yet. Tell us about what you're building, what you're working on to give folks context. [33:09] Yeah, so I mean, I think I spoke on spoke about this on the podcast before, but [33:16] the last three years let's say um been working on oasis on chain which is a [33:22] which was a fully crypto conference in the Bahamas. We kind of shifted this year, which was our last one was January. We shifted to a wider [33:32] like frontier tech is what we're calling it um focus where still crypto but also ai of course did you pivot to ai we're we're all inclusive we're multi-faceted over yeah but also including [33:48] I respect technology and stuff like that.

[33:50] Okay. But your last event was in January? [33:55] Yeah. [33:56] Cool. End of John went really well. We're definitely pivoting more towards less, I don't want to say less international focus, but definitely more hyper local. [34:05] Yeah. We focus on where the needs are the most [34:08] So that's been interesting. [34:10] Yeah. [34:11] Tell us about, yeah, what... [34:13] what types of use cases that you're seeing where the energy is like would be so curious to hear. [34:20] Yeah, I mean, so here and then I'd say for the region in general, for the Caribbean in general, we're kind of seeing the same thing that you guys are saying in the US where...

[34:30] cryptolish has gotten so institutionalized. So there's less of the, you know, the small builders, less of the startups and a lot more of the [34:39] Banks are paying more attention. Banks are trying to get into like [34:42] tokenization, for example, a lot of the financial institutions, even on the like the more corporate side. So actually right now I'm working with a [34:50] an agri tech company. [34:52] that wants to [34:53] one use stable coins and two um use block changes for like traceability uh because they're going for the form to fork angle um still working with them on that so we're seeing

[35:04] stuff like that pop off uh definitely less of the you know small builders trying to build in d5 for example unfortunately but this is where we are now so so it's pretty similar across yeah and are you in terms of the conversations that you have with some of the more like traditional financial institutions there they were in the bahamas what's the appetite like is it just a curiosity in there they want to connect with you to like understand what's happening or do you feel like [35:34] watching and now we're ready to start like building stuff.

[35:37] Yeah, there's definitely this like kind of barbell distributions where 98% are still paying attention or they're interested, they haven't done anything. And then there's like a very small 2% that are already actively building in it and working on small projects at least. [35:52] But it is growing, which is interesting to see. [35:55] you know, when when JB Diamond came on and started talking about tokenization, everyone's like, oh, [36:00] I guess we need to take this more seriously. [36:03] That's how things go. Yeah. And do you feel like there's [36:08] Like, like, [36:09] how I'm trying to say this as diplomatically as I can, like the market being where it's at, how has that affected sentiment?

Yeah, I mean, it's bad across the board. [36:25] um i won't say bad across the board i mean [36:29] there's just less interest in like [36:32] trading less interest and just people [36:35] looking at crypto itself, it is [36:38] It does feel like it's just the institutional angle now. [36:41] Yeah. It feels like back in [36:44] like 2015 2016 when it was that blockchain not bitcoin era where [36:50] A lot of the, again, financial institutions were focused on the tech itself, which is not a bad thing. [36:57] but definitely less interest in actual [37:00] Um, [37:01] like investing on definitely less interest in the decentralized aspect in general, too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is that does seem to be the trade off with some of these bigger players coming in. I remember I just had a flashback to [37:15] 2017 was sitting in an office that was when i got crypto pilled um i was working in um [37:23] in new york and i was in a i was at indiegogo where i was working at indiegogo and there was a bunch of guys in the office that were like in that were getting into crypto at that time and that was kind of like i was watching i was definitely not in their conversation but i was like kind of watching what they were doing and i was like oh like from the sidelines watching and i remember overhearing a conversation that one of them had that day or one day that was like speaking to to blockchain not bitcoin or blockchain not crypto which was like [37:51] bro, um, [37:54] where this company is, um, [37:57] putting the [38:00] the supply chain of fish [38:02] on the blockchain and that was like

[38:06] going to be this revolutionary thing, because if you know anything about like the fish industry, there's a lot of fraud and it's actually very fired up. There's a lot of fraud in the fish industry and it's rampant and like to the point where [38:20] Like when you sit down at a restaurant, [38:23] two out of three times, you are probably having something that is mislabeled. Like you are not having the thing that you think you're having. That may not be the case in the Bahamas, but certainly in Nashville, Tennessee.

Absolutely. Whenever you have to do what they think most border, it's like, [38:38] yeah and like and it isn't even necessarily like um [38:43] I, I, uh, [38:45] Like, [38:45] a malevolent thing where someone's like trying to be evil it's like right it's just [38:51] Anyway, we don't need to get into fish fraud. No, I love it. [38:55] We could do a whole other episode. I have read a lot about it. Anyway, it is solving. This was in 2017. But they were fired up because it was solving for fish fraud.

And as soon as you get all the fish on the blockchain, then there's going to be no more fish fraud. And you'll be able to sell your Mahi Mahi at Nobu for three times the price or whatever it is because it will be tracked. So anyway, that was what we were doing then. [39:20] That energy is coming back, which is crazy to see. It's coming back. It really is coming back. People are talking about it again. I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I've seen the show before. I am bored. The cool thing is that.

[39:34] you know, they're talking about it more in terms of like, [39:36] We want to build that on Ethereum or Solana and not like, [39:40] Hyperledger. So there is that proof. [39:43] Um, [39:44] The decentralized aspect is still that people aren't [39:48] I don't know about this. [39:49] people aren't just trying to build like small private blockchains. They want to engage with the wider ecosystem. They don't really understand it, but at least there's there's still a little bit of that interest. [39:59] Okay. Yeah, for the record, I think if we could figure out a way to put Phish reliably on the blockchain, it sounds like a great idea.

I'm not down on it. I think there was a lot of the tech stack that was not solved for in 2017, which maybe now, almost 10 years later, we have solved for some of that. [40:16] Yeah. [40:17] So I'm game. If you're really not, let me know. I'd love to say ten years later. And I kind of I know. [40:24] When did you get into crypto? What was your start date? [40:28] like basically 2016. i was paying attention in 2015 2016 when i got into it okay and what was the thing for you [40:36] Um...

[40:38] It was kind of all the above. It was the crypto aspect in general, but for me, it was kind of like the anti-fraud thing was a big part of it. I had this idea of like, I wanted to put all the governments [40:51] like treasuries on blockchains. [40:54] You're laughing about that, but that's like, hello. That's the dream right there. Yeah. I mean, it would never happen, but... [41:03] Thank you. [41:04] transparency you're transparency king i love it it would be great it would be great it would be great okay so you were like you were very values driven getting into it in 2017 you were like okay this is how i could and a big part of that too was like i was already paying a lot of attention to fintech

[41:21] Like, you know, the Stripes, the Cash Apps and whatnot. But none of those worked in the Caribbean. [41:26] So I was like, oh. [41:27] that sucks and then i when i understood how blockchain is working like oh this could be [41:30] This could be the solution for that, pretty much. [41:33] Yeah. [41:34] cool yeah so it's kind of a wider stuff it's so interesting to see here like what's the thing that got [41:41] people hooked got people interested because it really is like it's just a mirror to the things that they're interested in and like it's it's very revealing i find those the answers to that question um very true [41:53] Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about Octant. You just wrapped the Octant creator program. Tell us what is the Octant creator program? [42:01] Yeah, it finished a little while ago, but I mean, it was... [42:05] I think you'd mentioned... [42:08] or someone I mentioned, a boot camp, which is the perfect way to put it. It really was [42:12] It was a boot camp. It was about... [42:15] It was a few weeks. It was a lot more intensive than I expected. Okay. I think more than anyone expected, but... [42:23] in the best way because they took it so seriously and it showed they really cared about actual like education they cared about just leveling people up.

It was a lot. I can tell you how many exactly there's a lot of participants. [42:38] And we kind of went every single day, we went through sessions, and we had a task to do basically homework to do pretty much every day. So it was serious. [42:51] And we had like we had sessions all pretty much all of them had guest speakers. [42:56] So it was a lot of [42:58] A lot of deep ties into different aspects of obviously marketing, creator interactions in general. [43:05] the various you know social media uh interactions and whatnot so that they i i was [43:12] very surprised in the best way possible at how well it went.

[43:15] Yeah. And it's in the goal of the program is to like, is to upskill folks on, you know, [43:24] uh, creator [43:25] and being on being a digital creator. Am I thinking about it correctly? [43:29] Pretty much. [43:31] And again, it was kind of across the board, obviously, with with more of a focus on Twitter, just because that's kind of where everyone is. But it gave you like, for example. [43:41] So I'd say like for me, it's because I'm doing more local stuff. It means that I very unfortunately have to use LinkedIn.

[43:47] So it also covered those aspects as well. But of course, still a heavy focus on, you know, everyone in tech is on Twitter on X. So it's really [43:58] Even for people who are just new or just starting, it's like getting your name up there. [44:02] Yeah. And make sure that people actually pay attention to what you're doing and to what you're trying to bring into the world pretty much. [44:09] Yeah. Everyone says that about LinkedIn. Like I'm reluctantly on LinkedIn. I'm reluctantly on LinkedIn as well. But like at some point we're going to have to stop saying that.

And like, we're just going to have to be on LinkedIn with our whole full chest. You know what I mean? Like just get behind it. And like, we're there. And like, yeah, it's, [44:25] I'm writing an article on LinkedIn now and I'm just like, I'm here now. This is what's happening. Totally. And when you write it, you'll let me know. I'll post it on my LinkedIn and we'll do the LinkedIn dance. You know what? I... [44:37] Let's do it. I think it would be better if [44:41] every single post on LinkedIn wasn't like, [44:44] chat gbt for oh yeah yeah yeah totally totally that is that is why it and among other reasons it gets a bad rep but [44:52] I think, like, be the change you want to be in the world.

You know what I mean? Try it. [44:56] I know you are. I know you are. I know you are. This is my actual thought. Yeah. I know you are. We're getting there. We're getting there. In terms of the creator program, tell me, like, were there any speakers or sessions that stood out or, like, that changed how you were thinking about something that you're working on? [45:11] Yeah, so they really had a wide range of speakers kind of crossing the gamut in crypto. And it was like, I mean, all our faves like David, David Phelps, Emily, [45:23] from Hype, Bradley from Bass, Azeem.

It was a really good [45:29] Louis, who does amazing videos with EF. So it kind of covered a lot of different aspects and areas. [45:36] For me, [45:38] I mean, for me, who, you know, I worked in growth and marketing previously, and now I'm trying to do more on the local side. [45:45] where [45:47] I think it's just a very different interaction and Emily did a really good job, in my opinion, just covering the different aspects and different types of [45:55] really marketing and what that looks like. [45:58] Um [46:00] in different like [46:01] uh, [46:02] categories, I guess, and in different contexts, I would say.

[46:06] So yeah, Emily Lai. [46:08] Yes. Yeah. [46:10] Um, [46:11] So yeah, that was really excellent. [46:13] But I think all of them did a very good job. Because you also have to deal with-- they gave time for questions. [46:20] um and like really again deep dives and really good interaction so i think they all covered [46:25] a lot of different contexts, a lot of information in general. [46:30] yeah yeah shout out emily she's um i what i would say is like definitely a full stack marketer like she works she's in there in uh uh [46:40] meta ads to thinking about some of the brand marketing stuff.

Like she's, she's very, she's, [46:47] an incredible marketer stuff i just don't normally think of you know yeah totally um okay great so there's a link in the chat here if you're interested in applying to the next creator cohort um [47:00] If you're a content creator or journalist in crypto, this one's for you. So there's a little form there that you should definitely fill out if you're a listener and you're considering it. But Stefan, with you, like what's next? What's next for you? What are you thinking about? [47:12] Oh, yeah, that's always a good question.

So I'm trying to like I said, trying to do this consulting thing, trying to make it work more sustainable with Oasis on chain itself. The conference where. [47:24] Now that we've done three, we're definitely going to do less of the, you know, big annual event and more just, you know, uh, [47:34] semi-consistent smaller scale like workshops, for example. [47:38] Calm. [47:39] So, [47:40] Sometime this summer we're going to do, again, back to the pivoting AI, we're going to do like a working with agents workshop. We're going to do some more stuff with [47:50] Agri-tech for farmers in [47:53] in the Bahamas.

So it's going to cover a wider range, but I'm excited to get that rolling. [47:59] I'm excited to hear about it. [48:00] jump into smaller contexts as well. [48:03] Is Agritech like a particular vertical that is... [48:07] Like, [48:08] happening a lot there? I presume so, but like is that? It's growing for sure. There's a lot more interest in it. [48:15] you know even before the Iran stuff but especially now there's such a bigger [48:19] thought about like again energy production and food security [48:23] Those two are the biggest things.

And those two for me are also some of the biggest things right now. So I definitely want to spend more time on it. [48:29] nice um well so nice to see you so nice to chat [48:32] And send me your LinkedIn post when you have it done. I definitely will. Everyone on LinkedIn for some reason. Great, great. Add Stefan on LinkedIn. Okay. Thanks, guys. Bye. [48:44] Okay, before we bring up our next guest here, just going to give a quick shout out to Polygon. [48:54] Let's get... [48:55] There we are.

Every company moving money globally hits the same walls. Legacy rails are slow, expensive, and built for a pre-internet world. Stablecoin rails are fast, but they are fragmented across vendors that don't talk to each other. The plumbing to deliver on the promise of stablecoins hasn't existed. Polygon's open money stack is fixing that. One unified stack that puts global money movement onto proven rails that move at the speed of the internet. And why Polygon? Because [49:25] their new brand campaign reminds audiences that it's not their first trillion uh check out the tweet we just dropped here um kate i'm not sure if we're gonna be able to play this but if so [49:35] No, shaking her head.

[49:38] Okay, well, we'll drop it in the chat and shout out to Polygon. We love you. And let's pull up [49:46] our next interview here. [49:51] Give us one moment, please. [49:56] Anthony Suhu, Chairman and CEO at MoneyGram, welcome to the show. [50:01] Thank you. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. So excited to have you. So I just want to give our listeners some context on MoneyGram before we get started. So if you've ever wired money to another country or if your family has, [50:16] There's a very decent chance that MoneyGram has touched some part of that.

200 plus countries, half a million locations, tens of millions of customers globally, a year, 85 years in business. And as I understand it, MoneyGram is integrating stable coins across the business with live services in emerging markets and plans to scale globally. [50:38] globally. So really excited to chat with you about that. Anthony, I'd love to learn some more about you. My research tells me that your parents moved from Hong Kong to San Francisco when you were six and your family used MoneyGram to send money home. And now you're running this company.

Tell me about your journey.