I think, like beholding strategy is if I have an n f T that gets me access to all of Lebron's practices for the rest of his career, and after seven of those practices, I'm like, oh that was fun. Okay, I don't have Sundays free anymore. Let me go ahead and sell this like the use it's clear, it's clear. It's not like how long should I hold my board ape? Have I missed the top? Um? Someone made me an offer.
I need liquidity, Like all of these other decisions that you make, um that you can get caught up in in in terms of like the strategy of buying those particular assets, I think that can you actually use what it is that you're buying into. If you can use it, then your gut, your instinct will tell you when it doesn't have a use for you anymore. If you go into this investment without that sort of gut clarity, then it's I don't think it's gonna appear halfway through beholding it.
I'm Will Lucas and Mrs Black Tech Cream Money. I'm gonna introduce you to some of the biggest names, some of the brightest minds and brilliant ideas I feel black and building but simply using tech to secure your bag. This podcast is for you, Ashley kines Is self Talk, crypto trader, Web free Point enthusiasts, and you surpassion for educating and mentory and black women about crypto blockchain technology and the value of dolls to leave blackties, presents and
projects in the crypto space. We've had a lot of conversations on this podcast about n m t s, the blockchain and more. So I asked asked you to give us a one oh one of how DOWS decentralized autonomous organizations work and what they may mean for how we govern ourselves in the future. Sure, so, just to break down the acronym itself. So it stands for decentralized autonomous organization. Right, So if we take the decentralized part, that part UM
boils down to votes. In most cases UM there are widgets or builded INDs that are put into either the telegram, the discord wherever the community gathers UM and large decisions are made by vote, and so that's the decentralized part of it. There is typically a governance team who oversees the decisions that go to aboute what decisions are we voting on who sort of determines the north star and sets the vision, but the implementation UM and the buy in for that vision is done in a decentralized way.
So that's the first word autonomous UM means. And this comes up when I think about like potentially having an Afro tech dow UM or doubts that are linked to larger corporations or other entities, like they are doubts by definition are intended to be autonomous and to be UM free of any sort of larger agenda than the one that is set forth by the governing body and the voting people that fill out the deep part of that acronym, right,
the decentralized part. And then the last word organization, So like, how do you organize? What are you organized around? UM? What's the goal? Where do you meet? Whether it's telegram, whether it's discord, however you all come together. I'm in a basketball down. Once a month we UM get together. I don't play basketball, but I cheerly from the sideline. But once a month we get together in person UM. And there's this aspect that takes it offline, so it
is still very human. So yeah, I mean that to me, at its simplest form, is really what a doubt is. It doesn't work the same when you try to break down like an f T and that acronym, I think it confuses people more. But DOW does the job of like really explaining what it is in the name. How do you imagine, you know, reasonably, within our lifetimes dows having the most significant impact on how we live or work.
I think that UM the collective power, the collective financial power, So you don't necessarily need a coin to have a doubt. Not all dolls have their own treasury and coins that they launch, but many do UM, and when they do, it's that pulled financial power that I see being the greatest instrument going forward. Um, there are real estate hows there's a down now and to like buy football teams,
basketball teams. Um, there's one to buy the constitution. So I think, UM, even n f T s, board apes, things that people couldn't buy as individuals but can now sort of own and buy into as a collective. I think that's really their greatest power moving forward. So how much of this has to do with how much of a particular coin or vote I earned, how in most cases, would you say that dows are you know somebody has a vote via the toke and that they own in
the dow. I can't speak to most cases, um, but I will say in my own experience there hasn't been a weighted vote where your vote is a proportion to your ownership. I think, Um, the ethos of dows and just Web three in general is less about how much you own the money that you put up necessarily and
how much you're actively giving to the community. So you could be in a DOW and see that there are a hundred members and you see the same fifteen twenty people speaking up in the chat, and then within that group of twenty people there are five people who are organizing in person events or doing some other aspect. There are definitely levels to contribution, and so um, those benefits are given to the people who contribute the most, not necessarily to the people who have bought in at the
highest price. Point is so where I earn whatever that participatory reward is, how does that get created in the dows? So what am I earning? That? Says Okay, Will lucas we can see, is contributing more. Therefore he is you
know has a higher profile in this in this organization. Sure, so I think that is a back door conversation into dows becoming sort of the workforce of the future, because right now I'm working on within my DOW, UM, we're working on badges and missions, much like video games, where like sharing on social media, UM is a particular mission for which you own a badge, and badges come with a value of coin, like if you earn the SO and so badge, you get one thousand of our coin
or you get ten more of our coins. So there's a literal incentivization of if you do X, Y, and c on behalf of the community, the communities treasury rewards you with more coins. UM. I'm not sure that that is how every doubt is structured, but it's definitely a model that's becoming popular because these are still organizations in the sense that like even nonprofit too, they have people that actually run it and they do the work um,
even though they're working on behalf of other people. And I was gonna ask you about nonprofitsy, We'll talk more about that in a second, so let's put a bookmark there. So the ones that you talked you just mentioned you know for those who are people who are contributing more and then they get these badges. You know, we're very
familiar with badges, especially if you play video games. UM. So when you get those badges and there you know their coins in respect, what what do you what can you apply those two Can I you know, can I buy something offline with that coin? Like? What can I do with my coins? It's up to the individual, um to the question of whether or not you can buy
actual things in real life with them. Absolutely. The procedure for that is you flip it from its coin back into ether, back into US D C, U, S d T or just you know money, um, cash as we know it. However, if you believe in the organization that you're doing all of these hours for that you're doing all of these work, this work for you almost don't want to cash those coins out because you're it's free money.
I mean, you might get when I get the particular badge, that coin might be worth five dollars a coin, but I believe by the end of the year it's going to be worth eleven dollars a coin and I didn't have to pay anything to get it. So, um, it
depends on your personal strategy. I think that there are definitely two different schools of thought as communities start to really think about whether or not they want to do this, Because there are the people who are absolutely like, yes, this is the future of work, and depending on how many hours you put into this, you can make two thousand, three thousand dollars a month working on behalf of the doubt.
And then there's another school of thought that's like, absolutely, no one should be living off of their participation in this doubt. This is UM as close to you, I don't want to say non profit, but as close to UM just fun or on behalf of the community as possible. It's cool if you can make a few extra dollars, but we definitely shouldn't be setting it up to that people are doing forty hours a week of missions and
badges and coming home with a full time salary. You mentioned something with regards to the transitioning accurrency, like you know, exchanging it for ether or whatever. What determines the value. Let's say, if you created a doll today, what is determining the value of its exchange to ethere or other things? Sure, so when a coin is first launched, UM it can be. I say it can't, because this isn't a percent of cases. But you mint the down mints their coin. They say
we want to mint a million of afrotep coin. Will say um, and we're going to sell them. The initial price will be a dollar fifty per coin. That dollar fifty is arbitrary that was set by the original creators of the coin and of the doubt. Then that graduates to what's called an a MM, which stands for an automated market maker. For example, unit swap is an a
m m UM. Once the treasury of a particular doubt releases some of its coins to an a MM, it's pure supply and demand that determines the value of that coin, getting from a dollar fifty to three dollars to six dollars to dollars. That's not something where the leadership or governance of a particular doubt sits down and says, okay, now it's time to take it up a notch um.
I think what does happen consciously is that they start to notice that the demand is increasing and now it's time to push it to an a m M so that we can make sure we're maximizing the amount of people that are interested in getting in the value that people are seeing in this coin and letting it fly, and did the open market determine what it will be worth? But the initial amount is arbitrary and then once you move to an a MM, it's it's people who want
to buy in that are really setting that up. Now, when you consider the question from the state of what makes someone believe that they want to pay seven dollars for something that used to be worth a dollar fifty, that can be or really any number of things. If you see the community getting more popular, and like cloud
cloud is a big one. Um, I think to me that's one of the magical aspects of doubs is that you really can sort of quantify cloud in this sense because just off of the popularity of a doubt, it's coin can ten x in a matter of weeks or months. Um. But it's assets are another the mission. Um. Yeah, I mean there are a number of factors that will increase what people believe to be the value of this community
and it's corresponding coin. But yeah, definitely a m M S Yeah, And so what what drives the demand of a doubt? So when when you think about Is it influencers. Is it the same sort of marketing thing that happens in every other you know in the digital age? Is it just influences guideas well? Now everybody wants to be a part of this thing, so that drives the demand
and therefore the value of those tokens. Yes and no. UM, the utility is really what ought to be driving it UM and some dows are made popular by their utility by having a mission that that's clear, it's clearly defined, people can get behind it UM. And then in other cases it is hype and it's utility from December to July to the next December has not changed, but people's
desire to be associated with the brand has increased. UM. And they may have thrown one hot party in August or something where they I mean people also UM people being the governance of Taos, they make strategic moves that also help increase the value of a coin in the
short term, like token gated events. UM. I remember during art Bussle here in Miami, one of the larger Dallas friends with benefits through a party UM and they had Rika Badou DJ and it was just sort of like a star studied event and it was five coins to get in. That was sort of like the gate keeping
threshold to get into this party. And at the time the coin was worth a hundred dollars, So it cost five hundred dollars to get into UM this particular party, and people wanting to go to the party took it from seventy to ninety to hundred, and the party's over UM and now it's probably sitting around sixty right now.
Who should be thinking about creating dolls? Like we mentioned nonprofits UM, what types of organizations and we're going to talk about the future were, but what types of organizations, startups, UM collectives should be thinking about dolls? I think in some sense everyone should be thinking about organizing around UM a mission that they believe in and they think that
will attract other people to organize around. But I am being vague and entering that because I read a tweet the other day that I've found really true, which is just sort of like, it's more lucrative to hold a portion of a treasury of a new doubt than it is to be a member of a pre existing taw So if you're making a money play, if you're trying to not necessarily get rich quick, but you want to be a whale of a particular coin or a cumula reap the benefit of those coins going ten x or
five x or whatever they're doing. You're not necessarily going to put all of your time and energy into someone else's now that may have the exact same mission is you. It's more lucrative for you to go start your own.
And I think that that's really a kink to be worked out in this entire process and why it's part of the ethos that people shouldn't like be making money he plays in the space in general, because when you just keep it purely at organizing around a mission that we all believe in and collectively feel like we can get there faster, better, stronger together than everyone should think with consider a doubt, whether or not they're considering starting
a doubt. If that makes sense. How do you think about how the Internet of things may impact our dial participation, our punishment or reward in a dial um? Will our devices betray us? So if I think about if car insurance, you know, the rate I get it may depend on how fast I go, being you know, determined by some by or system in my vehicle telling the insurance company. UM, how will the endet of things impact our relationship with
organizations that we may deal with. I think that in general UM society is moving in a direction of, in my opinion, overly quantifying UM any number of things, like from wearing fitbits to sleep until you have many minutes
you slept well or got deep sleep or whatever. And so I think that DOWS can also either be helped or fall prey to this over quantifying of contribution, over valuing the people who spoke up five times in a day even though absolutely nothing that they had to add to the conversation was substantive or move the conversation forward, but the contribution itself was greater than UM in quantity than someone else's one really really thought provoking statement this month,
and then you know, they dipped out, they had other stuff to do. So I don't think that the system of reward UM, whether it's reward and coin or rewarded with a leadership position or UM, whatever you see, your personal reward is for having gotten into this DOW. I don't think that UM. I think the Internet of things, as you say, will sort of push that towards a system where we need to really be mindful of our individual north stars in the space, like what are we
here to accomplish? And what um what this success mean to the individual and to the organization too, that we're not just a statueet of this many members, this many people did this, We have this many hours of contribution, this many people durining the conversation seventy of blah blah blah, And it's like, but what do you do? What impact
do you have? I love that it's a great segue into this this question because I was thinking about conversation I have on this podcast about n f t s and why which this is a strategy I've adjusted in
this speaks to what you just said. I did not believe personally in investing in centralized editable metadata n f t s where it may be stored on somebody's a WS somewhere, so that it was not on the blockchain, not on I p f S. And I sort of had to readjust my thinking because if I'm preaching, you know, get to know the engineering team building it, get to know the founders, get to know the organization. Maybe it doesn't have to last forever, but does it have to
last forever? Right? And so I wanted to get your idea on, you know, thinking about these things centralized versus decentralized, particularly around n f t s, and what are your thoughts on holding strategy with me saying that, So, I was what I'll call late to n f t s
probably in the last couple of months. I've been researching them for over a year, but sort of aped in on the last couple of months, and I had similar reservations and just not really understanding, um where the money play was number one in terms of like holding, what what am I really getting in for? What is the
move here? Or um. I think not to sidestep your question, but really the answer, my answer to your question is always to tell people that I am bullish on experiential n f t s, and I think in that sense, like beholding strategy is if I have an n f T that gets me access to all of Lebron's practices for the rest of his career, and after seven of those practices, I'm like, oh, that was fun. Okay, I
don't have Sunday's free anymore. Let me go ahead and sell this like the use it's clear, it's clear, it's not like how long should I hold my board ape have I missed the top? Um someone made me an offer. I need liquidity, Like all of these other decisions that you make, um that you can get caught up in in in terms of like the strategy of buying those particular assets, I think that can you actually use what
it is that you're buying into. If you can use it, then your gut, your instinct will tell you when it doesn't have a use for you anymore. If you go into this investment without that sort of gut clarity, then it's I don't think it's gonna appear halfway through beholding it. Are there dolls that we've been exposed to and we just you know, haven't kind of connect the dots that we've been you know, engaging with a decentralized autonomous organization.
And the reason I ask is this, you know, when we have the conversation on this podcast about n f T s, like we're we've been familiar with n f T like non fungibility for some time, like are you know your your birth certificate, that's a non fungible asset. So when we put it on the blockchain, now it's a non fungible token. You know so, But have we in the same way been exposed to the concept of a decentralized autonomous organization and now we're just starting to
see blockchain implications. I think we are used to a number of aspects of it UM. What we're not used to is UM what i'll call the shareholder model of like being bought in and then also as it becomes more popular, assets assets become more useful, or however the case may be, like we also go up in value UM being able to sort of move up in a
non political space. Workplaces have plenty of politics. The upside of being in an overly quantified environment of like hours of contribution and missions and badges completed, is that you're
it's free of those things. So yes, it takes a lot of what we're used to UM, and it matches it with things that were not necessarily used to UM and the blockchain itself, like having this open record, this lack of ambiguity of really being able to say, like, what transaction happened on what day by what you user X y Z like. Even that transparency is an aspect
that we're not necessarily used to. When you put those things all together, I think they're incredibly powerful and new, but the barrier of entry shouldn't be so high because to your point, yes, there are many many aspects of
doubts that were already performing. There was a quote I read UM and I think it's from Injuries and Horowitz where they were talking about the future of work and dows, and this particular paragraph struck me and it said the traditional way to make money was to work to earn, but the future of income is to X to earn, play to earn, learn to earn, create till to earn UM,
and work to earn. And so when you think about UM what it may mean for employment, you already have like the gig economy, influencers YouTubers who are making money. UM do we expect in our lifetimes or you know, reasonably in the next wouldn't you our lifetimes? But the next ten to fifteen years that we may see large corporations UM dissolve or be created in the DOW respect based on these sort of UM inputs, these workers, these
people producing the value. I believe more that we will see dows rise to the size of corporations before I believe that we'll see corporations that sort of bow to UM the system that dows are implementing for the reason of concentration of power. I just really don't see UM corporations giving that up. I'm sure there are plenty of aspects,
like a buffet table, they like that DOWS vote. Sure, we can implement voting, like we can do this, but ultimately like members will be holding ten percent of the treasury when the governance is holding or something like that. Like, I just I really don't see corporations coming to the ethos of the web three space necessarily. But I do think that dolls with people power can amass the power and the control over a particular market that corporations now have.
What are some dolls we should be paying attention to some some if it is, you know, buying into an opportunity, some low cap opportunities to be able to get into. What are some dolls that you're excited about that this audience should be should know about to get their feewab well, so shameless plug, I would definitely start with dow Labs UM and dow Labs started, of which I'm a part of. Dow Labs started with Miami Tech runs UM, which really
started during Bitcoin Week last year in Miami. It was a group of primarily guys who were just like, hey, let's get together, let's play basketball, um, and also talk about crypto. And then they launched a coin and didn't really see it like getting very big even though it had like a powerful group behind it. I mean, these like guys who are saying let's get together and play basketball are working at a six ten d and they are launching downs of their own. UM, so they're pretty
big in the space already. And so cut to less than a year later, and there are now like four other cities in the works, and this umbrella company has sort of been born called dow Labs that is now pulling in all of um these other they're using the system that made the first dows so popular and making it replicable across different use cases, and so people are coming to them us um and asking for Dow Labs
to launch their particular dobs. So I think that it's going to be a powerhouse of just all of the coolest project that you see, all of the doubts that you think are just kind of far flung, Like we'll look up one day and they will all be under the umbrella of the sort of like prognerant gamble of Dows that is led by a black man by the way, who is on the Dow panel for Afrotech Exact Miami this week and actually full disclosure, all of us on that panel are Dow labs. UM. That just sort of
like speaks to the power that it has outside of that. UM. Friends with Benefits is a big one also has a black man founder also on the panel UM and Friends with Benefits has a million use cases. I mean it's controversial and that now it's very costly to get in.
It's sort of the king of the space, the king of the cloud Dow UM, I would say, Um, but definitely they've got like chat rooms for investing and just for other aspects for people to really get the community and the support that continues to bring value to those very expensive coins. UM. What else? What other dolls are there? There are a number of real estate dolls, and I'm really sad that I'm blanking on the name of a good one right now, but that are like pooling assets
to buy property together. I think that is really cool. They're all sort of pulling it off in their own way. UM. Yeah, I mean there are there are so many dolls popping up. You can type in like chocolate chip cookie doll and you'll find something. Everyone is starting something. UM. Not all of them will last, but you know, there have been some great models. I would say the Constitution DOW is a great model of one that did not last but
was still ultimately beneficial for everyone who bought in. Yeah, I'm glad you you just touched on something that didn't last. Because I was gonna ask, is this sort of like an n f T where I need to before I, you know, dive into something for ape into an n f T, I need to know who's behind this thing, like who built this thing? Like who's where's it's all these things? Like what should I understand before I ape
into a DOW? Yeah? I think so. To go back to the Dow Labs example, I think that's what makes them powerful, right because one say, Miami Tech runs, and no one wants to get together in Miami to play basketball anymore. So those coins, the Miami Tech run coin then converts into a Dow Lab coin UM, and then as new doubts are brought into the umbrella, you still reap the overall benefit of any doubt associated with that sort of umbrella brand. Um, while individual ones may come
and go. So I think that that in particular is why I'm very passionate about that project, because it doesn't have to last forever. The overall mission is sort of timeless. Um. But I think that if you what you're speaking to is like rug pulls right, where you buy into something and then someone buys all the real estate and then
they shut down the discord or something like that. Um, this space is new, so there's really no legislator, there's no precedent, there's no legal precedent for people, UM kind of taking governance to task on things like that. I mean, the blockchain offers the transparency to make any sort of legal case almost open and shut because there there is a financial record that can't necessarily be obscured. But um, yeah, we definitely don't suit. It's the wild world West in
that sense. Yeah. And so you mentioned afro Tech exactly, which I'm super excited about. Um, we're headed to Miami this week. What can you expect or what should we expect more from afro Tech and the Gravity family about n f t S blockchain. And because we've you start, we've been in the metaverse for a couple of years now with afro Tech, and so talk about you know what the community, our community can expect to see from
afro Tech coming forward. I think first and foremost, the community can expect to see that we are already in the space. We Gravity, we afro Tech, but also we black people, um are are already in the space. We have a featured n f T artist coming at least Swops. I don't know if you're familiar with her. She has a coin based commercial. She just had a billboard in Times Square. I mean, she's out here as a black n f T artist, UM. And so I feel like we need to know the names of the people doing
the work in the space. Everyone who touches the stage as someone who has been doing the work in the space for at least the past couple of years. And so, while you know, we're doing these podcasts and we're doing the work to sort of educate people and bring them in, it's also good to couple that with the knowledge that, like, we are also already here, and you can sort of reach out to people who look like you at any moment and ask them a question asked for their expertise
lean on their knowledge. UM. So yeah, I think that that's hugely important, just just familiarizing with who is already doing the work um. And then beyond that, there are
so many aspects of blockchain technologies. I'm happy that there is a panel on DOWS, and another panel on defy, and another panel and n f T s and then we've got a gallery of our n f T artist and the n f T artists there in person to answer questions if anyone should have, like so that people sort of understand how all of these technologies, um come together,
how the community comes together. UM. I like to say that I'm sort of a grandparent in the crypto space because I've been in it for like four or five years. Isn't it so new that, like most people have not been in it for that long? But like when I started trading, you literally had to read a white paper to know like what that coin was even planning to do, like what the value the intention behind its release. Like
when people buy stocks on the stock market. You know Coca Cola, you know propt A Gamble, you know what they do, you know what you're buying into. In two thousand seventeen and most of these coins out now, we're not out in two thousand seventeen, or they launched in two thousand seventeen. Most of them. Um, you just there was no trading history. So now people go back on coin base or binance or whatever trading desk that you use, and you just kind of look at the trading history.
They don't even know that there's a white paper. They're not concerned with it at all. Um. But all of these spaces used to interconnect way more than they do now. And so all of that to say that I'm excited to like bring that this event um capture the interconnectivity of all of these aspects of blackchain technologies. Black Tech Green Money is a production of Black at the afro Tech in a Black Effect podcast network and I Heard Media. It's produced by Morgan Dubon and me Well Lucas, with
additional production support by love Beajaman Rusa Lewis. Special thank you to Michael Davis. Jermaine Hall is the car savan Yan you know, like the one. Yes, that's his real name. Learn more about my guests and other tech disrupt that's it innovatives to afro tech dot Com. The video version of This episode will chop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube next week, so tap in. Enjoying Black Tech Green Money, leave us a five star rating on iTunes, Go get your money, peace and love, se