Looney Tunes on Hedera! Jon Stock of ACME LABS / King Solomon (Part 2)

King Solomon interviews Acme Labs as part of the Hedera Corner in the LightHouse by Genfinity! Brought to you by LightHouse Report sponsor Hedera Hashgraph and in collaboration with our partner and Hedera wallet provider HashPack.

Transcription

ACME Labs – Jon Stock – Founder & CEO
‍Show on the web 3 side, what we've noticed is that the Hedera community is one of the more active, engaged, and thoughtful just web 3 communities that's out there. You know, they're as a whole, you'll find more that are excited to like talk, engage, interact. You know, they're the types of folks that are asking good questions and that are, um, you know, much more thoughtful, oftentimes than some of the other communities that I've seen out there. And a lot of our interaction there has been around beginning our, you know, kind of the Twitter discussions. We think these are actually great ways to have kind of big scale interactions with everybody, right? Good times to chat back and forth and ask questions and, you know, tell the stories and meet the, the people behind the Twitter Handles and the pfps and that sort of stuff. We also use Discord, a bit for this Community as well. The other community that we're, you know, talking to and bringing in this kind of, you know, non-web three native audience, Discord is actually probably the worst platform in the world for someone like that. Kind of messy, kind of crazy, kind of, you know, easy to get scammed, you know, a bit of friction to get into it. Um, and so, uh, what we think kind of going forward, one of our kind of strategic moves going forward is more time on these sorts of live streams, Twitter spaces, probably gonna be doing some Facebook, you know, live streams, etc., as well as you know, the traditional web 2 audience. Emails still a great tool for them. You know, a lot of the kind of interactions that happen, through traditional channels is, is kind of expected there.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍Yeah, 100%, no, 100%. The Discord point is, I mean, you even saw like the founder of Discord was like that, you know, because Discord was built to be a gaming platform, right, for the most part. The founder of Discord was like, this is not what this is not what Discord was supposed to be X Y and Z, and there was horror stories like, you know, and there still probably are, over the past couple, you know, two, two years or so, surrounding Discord's getting hacked, you know, wallet connectivity, other aspects. I mean, for anybody down there even listening, I would very much so recommend setting your Discord to private, and I would only recommend, and take it at your own risk, like if you're interacting through claims or connecting wallets or stuff like that through Discord, I mean, do that at your own discretion because I even get really nervous about doing anything, surrounding that. So, I definitely want to ask Acme, and I know we're getting close to the hour mark here, so we're gonna, we'll wrap it, we have 12 minutes left though, and I would love for both of you guys to maybe just talk about some of the major accomplishments that you had in 2022 from a team standpoint knowing that we went through a bear market, everything else, and what you're most looking forward to in 2023 from your project standpoint, from the ecosystem as a whole. So, we were already on Acme, so I'll start with Acme again.

ACME Labs – Josh – CCO
‍I guess I'll jump in. I think, one of the cool things for me from our perspective is that, like, you know, we spent most of 2021 building. One of the things we wanted to do when we launched was to, have a platform built. It wasn't a Kickstarter for us. It was always, let's build something really cool. And, you know, we've learned some things along the way. Our product is getting a little bit smoother every day. I think I'm really excited about the fact that we, I think, finally cracked how to make wallets invisible to new users, meaning they can sign up for Acme Labs with their email, and there's a wallet created for them on the back end, and they don't have to take those steps, right? So one of the things we're trying to eliminate is the hurdles for new users to onboard into the space. And, I think, kind of going back to your last, question, it's really interesting because there are two, I think there are two Hedera communities, and there are two communities within any NFT ecosystem, right? There are those who see the need for growth and are welcoming to outsiders and new ways of doing things, and then there are those who are very insular and really want to do things the same way they always do things, right? It's like your Discord has to look like this, you have to whitelist like this, you have to, like, there's a way that things have always been done. And so, one of the things we really recognize is that we have to grow, or there's nowhere to go, right? Like you're talking to the to an echo chamber, and it's slow growth, and, like, one of the things I think about every day is, is I'm a collector. I have Dead Pixels. They're the number one collection on Zuse. Every day, only like six to eight, maybe so on a day. So, there's a lot of room for volume increase on Hedera across the board. And, one of the things that we're really focused on is bringing in new users. We think it's, it's, it's the most important thing we can do to help grow this ecosystem and to bring in more traditional users who don't have to stress out about all of the hurdles that you have to, like, like it's really terrifying that sometimes, if you're not used to the space, you sign up for a wallet and they, the one, the first thing that happens is they ask you for a picture of your ID. Like, if you're just trying to buy a print, that's scary. There's a lot of links that can be scams. My first time I ever bought an NFT was on was on Ethereum a while ago, and I clicked on the wrong link for mints, and I was so excited to admit my first NFT, and my 600 plus 80 in gas just disappeared like the first time I ever tried to mention something. And those are things we want to avoid, right? Those are things we want to get away from. If I hadn't been a person who was like, "well, that was probably my fault," if I was new to the space, I probably would have never come back. So we're looking at art from an art standpoint. How do we create virtual galleries? How do we create things that are shareable? How do we create things that increase community, increase value for people who are holding because the art is good, because the storytelling is good, and because the technology doesn't get in the way? And because the community you're coming into is welcoming of people on the outside. And I think by and large, I've seen the Hedera community has been awesome. I did see like a week or two ago there was like a blacklist that someone put out, but it was like a list of the like 10 people I thought were probably the most welcoming I've met in Hedera, and so those are the kind of things that like scare off outsiders. So one of the things we're really excited about is um trying to get people in the door through things that they've collected before. Our second collection is from a group called Atomic Exotica that's done vinyl toys for a long time. Um, we want to bring art collectors into the space, and we want to make it easy for them to engage and to participate and to buy art in an environment that's not stressful, that's not like, "hey, I'm gonna get this really quick so I can flip it," on buying art because I love art. I'm buying into this project because I believe in the space. I'm buying into this project because there is some stability. It's not a pump and dump, it's not a scam, it's something with longevity. And so anything we can do to bridge that gap, whether it's the physical digital, whether it's the email-only site onboarding, whether it's the virtual galleries that allow people to share their stuff more easily, that's what I'm most excited about. I'm most excited about trying to bring this space which I love to the masses. So I'll let John answer, but that's where I stand.

ACME Labs – Jon Stock – Founder & CEO
‍Well stated Josh, as per usual. This is why we love you. I won't take up a lot of time. I want to give everybody else a chance, but uh, yeah, things we're most proud of for 2022 being able to meaningfully get the open beta version of the platform out in front of folks to get the feedback we need as builders. So you know, part of what we do, the platform needs to enable both the creators and the collectors and all the participants in the ecosystem, to participate, and we, you know, the best ways to get the feedback to tell us "fix this, change that." That's, you know, grease the wheels. Here is in real feedback. So, getting that up and launched. In 2023, the things I am absolutely most excited about is being able to turn this on to a much broader audience and being able to expand the types of products: physical goods, digital goods, and then the types of experiences. Beyond just an art buying experience to game experiences, virtual reality, and augmented reality experiences, etc. That's where we, we, you know, see the most magic happening over 2023.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍Yeah. I think one of the important things that Hiki had mentioned was kind of that usability, that user onboarding experience where it's not so scary because I know so you know. Just a huge shoutout to Patches and Binx. They did a Twitter space probably three or four days ago. This kind of gigantic Hedera onboarding event. And you know you had one guy come in saying, "I'm just you know. I have to write down 24 words, X, Y, and Z." You know but that is a security mechanism. But I have to give a gigantic shoutout to HashPack with whom we do these interviews in collaboration with for their magic link integration where you can literally create a HashPack wallet and onboard into the Hedera ecosystem with just an email which I think is fantastic for usability. And then for anybody else down there that's educating individuals, I also want to give a quick shoutout to Pre-IPO Club and who's sponsoring our guide to Series 65 pilot which essentially is trying to provide financial literacy for individuals. It's free. You know if you're not aware what the Series 65 is, essentially to become an accredited investor there are financial thresholds which are very very high. You know but you can you know study. You can gain financial literacy and take a Series 65 and if you know you're a legitimate individual, you can potentially get sponsored by a registered investment advisory firm. You can look at what the salaries look like for people that do get sponsored even potentially as a side gig. I'm assuming because that's going to be expanding out and moving into probably crypto at some point and that is a byproduct once you receive sponsorship you do become an accredited investor. So, you know that link is up above if you guys are interested in that so huge shoutout to Pre-IPO Club Crypto Eddie who's helping us with the educational aspects. Yeah if you want to check it out. And then I want to get to Stader though so what you, you know from your standpoint, Stater's largest milestones in 2022 and then what you're looking forward to in 2023.

Stader Labs – Gautam Midha - Growth
‍Yeah sure. I think from a 2022 perspective, of course, we were kind of the first in my perspective. So it's been going to just kind of see the space globe and also the network grow and other ecosystems within the network grow. I think some you know pure map perspective yeah we reached uh we reached 100 million dollar TVL at some point in time, when the markets are a little bit kinder to us, we reached a billion dollars, a billion Hbar, in TVL as well. So those were really great sort of indications of adoption. But I think the one sort of number that we are more proud of is the 12,000 odd unique wallets that I've connected with us, and the hundred thousand odd transactions because that shows depth and that shows the fact that we've kind of built this solution for a large base of an audience, right? So, that's something that we're obviously so proud of, right? I think coming to 2023, we have a super solid base. We have a few DeFi Partners kind of coming through the door, but we are super excited to kind of grow this ecosystem and really unleash the full potential of DeFi on the Hashgraph, and for that, we're excited about, you know, welcoming new partners, potentially from our other ecosystems to come and build with us on Hedera. And you know, looking forward to more Integrations and more use cases, and giving more options to users on Hedera to kind of explore what they can do on the DeFi side of things.

Genfinity – King Solomon – Founder & CEO
‍Well, I wanted to thank both of you guys today. I don't know if Valor maybe has any questions, but I don't have any more, and it's just been an amazing opportunity to be able to meet and interview both Acme labs. If you're not aware and you're just hopping in right now, this is a lot of the Chuck Jones intellectual property, Chuck Jones, on. Yeah, we can hear you. Can you hear me? I think, I think Stader might have audio rugged. No, but it's been a pleasure meeting with Acme Labs today. It's been a pleasure meeting with Stator today. Stator has staking Solutions with hbrx within the Hedera ecosystem, um, which we have panned up to the top. And Acme Labs, obviously, with the Chuck Jones IP, really kind of building out the integration of kind of that web 2.5 as we move to web3, so making solutions that they are facilitating very accessible to normal users that might not be as comfortable with crypto, but also crypto-centric users, and a lot of opportunities out here, guys. I just really appreciate you guys' time. I know how busy everybody is and wanted to say thank you to you guys. So with that, thank you guys very much, and we'll see you guys next Monday for the next Hedera Corner. If you guys missed it, we I think we've nailed in Shane Higdon, CEO of the HBAR foundation, potentially Christian Hasker, for a couple weeks from now, so we'll be pushing that out. I think we have Dovu coming up soon, so it's gonna be a really interesting March. So looking forward to it, and we will talk to you guys. Thank you to both individuals from Acme, and thank you to Stader for coming up today.