Recordings

Notes

Transcript

welcome to season two of the bean pod a podcast about decentralized finance and the Beanstalk protocol I'm your host Rex before we get started we'd like to again remind everyone that we here at the podcast are super bullish about Beanstalk protocol and other deep hype projects but as we've seen time and time again this is still a risky space so with that in mind always do your own research before investing in a project including anything covered here in the podcast and never ever invest funds that you can't afford to lose and with that on with the show [Music] intellectual honesty is a Cornerstone of this podcast our main purpose at the bean pod is to learn and then facilitate learning for you our listeners when we advise all of you to do your own research before investing we mean it and we're doing it alongside you there are a few excellent resources out there if you're looking to get a working knowledge of a variety of D5 topics these creators don't focus on coding or technical details but instead offer practical models of how projects or organizations work their content is vital for Bridging the Gap between crypto Natives and non-natives setting up the broader industry for future success Caesar of the YouTube channel Caesar snack sandwich is just such a Creator he currently has over 300 videos posted about a huge range of topics within crypto and defy and is known for his clever and entertaining infographics Caesar's kind enough to join us in the studio today to talk about his work well Caesar thank you for joining us so to Jump Right In uh how about you tell us a little bit about your background and and how you ended up in crypto um well I'll start like at crypto uh basically I discovered uh ethereum and Bitcoin and this kind of stuff at the bottom of the covid crash uh it was probably the best time to discover it however when I discovered it I was hesitant right I was like what is this weird eth thing and like I was kind of playing around with stocks at that time um in the past quite a while ago uh I was trading Forex like ta Style Trading Forex and I got wrecked pretty bad just because you know whatever I just made bad choices or anyhow so then I started deciding to try to do stocks because it's like a lot more passive than uh you know Forex Trading right with leverage right so then uh after I I came across like I was I think I was using uh etoro and they they had some options for for crypto as well and then I started you know going down that rabbit hole and so I basically you know bought my first little bit of eth at the bottom of the covet crash and you know like it would have been nice to just go all in then right but uh I was a president so I got in there and then I just I'm intrigued with it because it makes sense to me I'm a very logical person and uh a lot of a lot of uh crypto is very logical and just like I might not be a mathematician I might not be able to do complicated math but I can understand like why something makes sense and that's kind of what crypto offers to to its users right for the most part right there's obviously speculation and popularity which is not logical in predictable so to speak but that's kind of why I got into crypto and then I just started researching everything yeah it's interesting how many folks we talked to that have a background either in traditional Finance or or got involved through something like Forex and said okay you know there is this um set of rules or Norms or whatever around what I have been doing you know if I've been trading Forex or I've been you know trading stocks or options or derivatives or you know there's a set of of rules and Norms that's kind of built in in traditional finance and then they see the opportunity that cryptocurrency offers by you know not being locked by specific trading hours and not being you know kind of molded into these boxes that have um have made you know wealth building or or successful Trading difficult that we see in traditional finance and and it's amazing how many folks we run into that say you know that was really it it was it was the next logical step well when I when I was in Forex and stuff like that I I had a I took a course in Forex like not like a like a registered course in like a university or anything like that but like kind of just like a trading like you know some guy who has a trading strategy and sells it basically right so I took that and one of the things that he he sold or he he gloated about uh Forex was the ability to trade like 24 hours a day right and then like of course crypto now is seven days a week as well on top of that right so that was one of the things that I I kept thinking about when I was like watching the charts with stocks is that the like the pre like I can't remember what it like the the market hours like you know like the the institutions can buy and sell like one hour before everybody else and that to me is just ridiculous like that's crazy like that that that's not fair you know what I mean the whole amount of power institutionalized power yep yeah yeah so that's kind of what I what really like brought me to crypto in a sense of like oh it's it's not that like you 24 hours seven days a week and then nobody has specialized treatment when it comes when it comes to trading right like when I first came and then you know like the whole idea of like decentralization like you know FTX is an obvious example of why I like I kind of I didn't see FTX doing what they did but it was definitely from the very beginning I saw that as an issue like why why would I want to leave my money with this company that I don't know anything about like even you know putting money in into the the bank the Trad five banks in the world like you don't know what they're doing with your money right like they're not they're not transparent completely about like what you're you know exactly where your money is going and that kind of kind of got me as well into crypto and kind of made me a little more interested and then of course like the liquidity like uh how lucrative it has been for me because of the the timing that I just you know fate dialed me those cards at that time when you know I got at the bottom of the bull run and just things just kept going up right so it definitely that probably played a huge role in my interest level of crypto like if I was if I had joined right like a week ago then I might have I might be in a totally different mindset than I am right now right yep yep absolutely yeah I uh yeah I would say right now we are or seeing the uh the under the other end of that that bull whip and um you know it's it's really interesting to have conversations around you know future adoption or retail adoption in uh in the current context and um yeah it could be a completely different point of view well there's definitely a lot of people who are like severely wrecked like just in the past like four months if you had decided like oh it's a good time like if you bought the top there's there's going to be tons of salt right everywhere and that'll slow things down like I've talked to people in the real world that are like yeah yeah that stuff's a scam that's crypto's crazy and you know and because they got wrecked right and and of course like because it's so you can seriously get very quickly wrecked like I'm you know stocks are you know they're pretty bad they're down pretty bad right now because of the the macro and stuff like that and people are wrecked if they had bought the top of Tesla or something like that right now right but traditionally speaking like stocks have a pretty pretty good like track record for not wrecking people right for the most part right there's still bad things but like people always remember the worst thing that's happened just just recently and and crypto has had some really bad things like when I talk to people in the real world about crypto they always ask me and I I always like tell them that you know it's it's great and I like I talk about the power of Dao the the ability to like vote on things and stuff like this and but I always pre-face or caveat things with like oh it's dangerous like exploits are brutal right like the amount of money that's been taken in the past two years through exploits is it's it's it's it's astronomical right so I I don't know maybe I shouldn't like if I'm Shilling to like normies I shouldn't really be like you know you could lose it all by just sticking it in a contract right but I don't know that's just the way I am like I I like to explain things truthfully and then just allow people to make the decisions for themselves I remember quite a few years ago I was like I was kind of like I'd done a I got my insurance salesman's license just as like a side job like and I was a terrible insurance salesman because like I would just explain to them you know like why these things why these specific insurance packages like investment Insurance packages kind of make sense and how they can cover you and give you like retirement and savings and stuff like that and I'll be able to explain it but then I wouldn't be able to really push them to buy it you know what I mean I would be like here's what it does if you're interested go I would never be like you need to do this you know like this is important you know I couldn't do that and that's kind of you know what it what you can see through my through my channel and stuff like that and through my content is that it I I hold that same mindset like I never tell people what they should or shouldn't do or what I even what I think they should or shouldn't do because it's just that's just not my character right yeah I think that's fair and one of the things that I know that that the bean Community has really appreciated about about your work in general and your work you know for you know as it relates to to Beanstalk is you know we've got this this theme of intellectual honesty you know we are looking to to be a protocol and a Dao and a group that is transparent and open and trying to figure out the right way to do whatever the thing is we happen to be doing at the time you know whether it is laying down the foundation of a set of tokens or if it is providing support or you know a a group that's looking to build on top of Beanstalk or if it's researching a potential Improvement or implementing a potential improvement improvement intellectual honesty is that that overarching theme and now I would say for Beanstalk security right along with that and really the two are intertwined you know it's that is what we're seeking after and and that's something we've really come to appreciate about your work as well is that that desire for intellectual honesty well that's the whole idea of beanstalks in their their on-chain governance was that you know it wouldn't be there would be no you know centralized idea of a control over over anything like there would be no team being able to just on a suddenly do whatever they wanted right and that that's like that's the important thing like I I see the benefit of both of these aspects in defy like uh I I'm all over the place and you know talking to lots of people lots of teams and that's kind of like what I do well is just kind of spread myself thin right but like some of the teams they they they maintain uh centralized control over their protocol to to a pretty strong degree right but I still don't it's not that I don't dislike that idea because I some of those protocols I really like and that's because I have had conversations with the team and I maybe I know them on a a personal level and I understand why they want to maintain that control but then on the other side you have like things like what you're talking about with Beanstalk and just other protocols that are very you know very doubt proper like a proper Dao where they're run completely by token holders or through through some sort of governance mechanism right I see the benefits of both of them right but like obviously like a centralized uh team has more ability to to do harm you know to to rug or to exploit or to just take advantage of users right it's a matter of like that's that's that's that's why it's so hard like for for someone who's new to crypto and let's say they go into a one of those centralized protocols and they start asking questions they won't they might not get the answers or that ability of you know character judgment that that I I have been able to get with that specific or those specific protocols because of you know my friendship with them if you want to call it that so I do understand the benefit of being fully decentralized and I do agree that that's there there's a heavy benefit but I also like the the ability of a team who who understands their product very well to be able to make sure it doesn't have any problems or to you know like do things that are with a longer Vision you know what I mean because a dow is very in the moment like they're really worried about this the current issue and how we're going to deal with it and there's it's it's harder to for a dow to think in like a three year four year five-year time set because they the people are fickle you know they come in they join the Dow they they worry about a couple things and then they they get bored and they they taper off or something like this there's you know both of those pros and cons in the system but like I definitely prefer the Dow over the centralized it's just I'm saying that there are some centralized systems that like the the code is not centralized but maybe you know the tokenomics or the reward schedule or something like this right sure yeah I mean it's it's it's been an interesting discussion even amongst some of the contributors in Beanstalk and I had a good discussion just yesterday about um about the ability to make decisions quickly and it seems like you know that is something that you know in a dow structure some of that that quick decision making is is sacrificed in the name of um of security and and um the broadest possible opportunity for for voices and it's just it's not necessarily a problem that can be solved it's just a tension that needs to be managed you know if if you know a project has a centralized team then you know they may have that that ability to think longer term or they may have the ability to make decisions in a faster uh faster way but yeah you know on the other hand you have that that risk that comes with centralization and then on the other side of the coin you know in in a in a more um a dow oriented structure a very flat structure you have a wide breadth of voices that you know have equal footing but at the same time it can be a little bit harder to to make decisions quickly or make changes during decision making processes or you know being being sensitive to changing scenarios and so it's it's it's just a tension that we learn to manage yeah that makes a lot of sense like uh just like in in a properly run down like a proposal needs you you need to leave it time for voices to be voiced and if you don't then you're actually like rugging those people's voices because someone might have voting power or the or have an idea that is sound and if you fast track and they just not present during that time then you you lose that benefit so Caesar you've been you've been talking about uh you you said a minute ago that you know one of the things that you've you've you do well is you you spread yourself thin and I wanted to ask you about that it seems like you have looked into a laundry list of different projects I mean how many different projects have you researched um it would be hard for me to say exactly but like I've got 300 plus videos so those are I generally if I if I if I take the time to read the entire docs then I take the time to make a video so I've definitely looked into more than 300 um protocols and stuff like that but there's been lots of them that I've kind of gone through and like oh you know this is a a uni swap fork in this sense or that sense and just kind of moved on or you know joined a Discord and kind of didn't really get motivated to make a video because of whatever whatever reason you know it just wasn't fresh or maybe my motivation levels were low at that that during that time and I just didn't do it so quite a bit and uh you know like my my basic rule of thumb is that like I just want to I want to see something that I haven't seen before you know like people sometimes message me and they're like oh we have this protocol it's the same as this protocol but it's launched on that chain can you do a video for us or can can we do a a uh a collaboration they like to use this word collaboration and uh I uh I always to me it's like I don't like there's no reason for me to explain the system that you've copied that I've already explained do you know what I mean like even if there's like a small change to it like oh instead of like oh instead of like rewarding this this aspect we reward that aspect then it's just kind of like oh you can just I can just people can just watch this video and then just say that oh we don't reward this we reward that you know what I mean whatever whatever it is so it's kind of it's kind of hard for me to to do a video unless I'm motivated and interested because of the the system I have for my videos what are the most unusual projects that you have come across that you're like wow this is really like either this is really unique this is completely insane this is an obvious rug like I mean you know you know maybe if it's an active project and you think it's an obvious frog we can just you can leave that yourself but like you know is there anything that like that you know as you've done all of your work and research that's that's really stood out to you as being particularly unusual or noteworthy okay yeah um I can make a couple comments on this like generally speaking if if I release a video for the most part it's something new and and interesting and exciting at the time it's like I'm very fickle in that sense like I don't I tend not to look back too much and kind of like oh I just kind of look forward at the next new thing the next new shiny thing right but uh um so any kind of innovation that that just kind of changes things drastically is is is is uh is is is new and and sparkling you know what I mean kind of like um most recently the the most new and different and interesting thing I've seen was like uh dollar you know inverse Finance has this new f-i-r-m firm Style uh stablecoin and that kind of really like made me feel like oh wow this is cool like like regardless of like you know like the team or the uh the the history of of projects and stuff like that I I think when teams kind of come together and they they design something new then then this is interesting like uh one of the teams that I really like who who has kind of a recently has a bad track record is like also bancor because they they really flip things a lot you know they they when they when they release something it's very different than what is currently already happening so it's both of these two like I they I was listening to one of their uh Community talks recently and they were talking about they want to they want they have this new design for an amm where each token you put inside has its own curve so it's kind of like if I put Ethan usdc inside this pool then I can say oh I only want my usdc to be traded for if at a price between two thousand three thousand US Dollars and I only want my or or the opposite I'm sorry between one thousand and two thousand dollars right and then I only want my eth to be traded for usdc at like three thousand to five thousand dollars or whatever curve I I decide right so it's kind of like on chain limit orders with a band of like like a like a curve like a band of prices instead of you know a whole bunch of individual limit orders so this is very interesting and this kind of stuff when they people that amazes me that they they've come up with this idea and and stuff like that so these are the kind of the projects that I like the kind of the the things that happen when that I see then I get excited about like this is very different this is very interesting they what they've done like the inverse Finance has a has the guy from there like I don't have any dollar I don't have any inverse tokens I'm not part of that ecosystem but when when he released that it's clear that he's you know the devs or the team they are monitoring understanding and thinking about the current stablecoin ecosystem do you know what I mean so this is kind of what I like um in regards to what you said about like rugs I've been pretty pretty lucky on rugs like I don't think I've ever been like severely rugged because I don't I I'm pretty uh hesitant on on actually putting my money like I I've done all of those videos but I haven't put money in most of those protocols because I just I'm very hesitant about it like um the worst my worst uh my worst um kind of downfalls have been exploits and that would that that's like understandable because that team doesn't doesn't get exploited on purpose for unless unless it's a rug right but for the most part they don't they don't really get exploited on purpose but uh you know I've only I think I've only covered maybe I don't know off the top of my head Maybe three or four protocols that were like rugs because if when someone makes a rug what they generally do is they take the easy way out they they they take like oh let's take this protocol let's Fork it jack up the apy so people come and then we'll rug them right but that's not interesting to me because they're just it's oh it's just another Fork so maybe that's why I'm guessing here that might be why I'm you know I'm I've been safe for the most part from rugs or it might be Karma if you believe in karma or fate or something I I don't know right oh that's that's a really that's a really interesting like organic way to to navigate and it goes back to what you were talking about earlier about things being interesting and I mean you're right you know in a lot of ways rugs aren't interesting because they're almost they're almost not made to be interesting in any sense Beyond short-term gains yeah exactly like like for example like like what I said about like inverse Finance or or bank or even Bean right like the amount of effort that had to be put into to these new designs doesn't warrant a rug because a rug can be so easy like people they just need to do what I said just Forks something change the like apis so people come and then run them you know like and it you know it's also much more expensive to do like a a rug on uh on ethereum and that's kind of where I mostly am so maybe and I don't know why like I've been I was on phantom for quite a long time and there wasn't a lot of rugs there either and I'm not sure like maybe there was I'm not sure why maybe because the people on Phantom were you know a little more capable than you know people who are you know off-ramping you know be Finance US dollars or BNB to buy that smart chain like that's a very easy way it's the the uh what's the what's what I'm looking for like the barrier of Entry to binance Smart Chain versus the barrier of Entry to Phantom is is much much much more different you know like you in order for you to get your assets onto Phantom you need to understand bridging and defy and stuff like this but to get on the Binet smart chain it's just you know you basically can go straight from binance right into binance smart chain so people who are just you know not doing their due diligence not doing their research will more likely end up on binance Smart chain or B B chain whatever they're calling it now and then therefore be more easily to be victimized right so I don't know maybe that those are just thoughts I'm not it's not a theory I haven't put a lot of thought into it but just something that's just come to me now sure it's it's certainly interesting so now to to take just our last couple minutes in and pivot so when it comes to Beanstalk what what Drew you to Beanstalk as a particularly interesting project um the first thing would definitely be the the complexity like uh it's I I looked at it as a kind of like a challenge to to explain what is Beanstalk because it's it was fun for me to read and try to understand it and build flow charts for it because it wasn't so easy like and that's maybe kind of one of the maybe a con I don't want to say it's a bad part because complexity this the complexity of the system makes it work right but I think maybe that's why adoption's harder for being stuck than say something like you know I don't usdc or something like it's the the amount of null the knowledge barrier that people that when you go to the website or when you try to interact with Bean through through the website Beanstalk it's not simple right it it kind of you know it requires a fair amount of research and just to kind of understand even like the basic options that you have there and all the data that is presented right so maybe this is why that the first thing that kind of uh you know attracted me to it because when I started looking at Beanstalk it wasn't you know pumping right it wasn't the apy wasn't very high the peg the price Peg was not like you know beef did pre you know how it was pre-explate right like it wasn't like that when I I first came in it was potential and I I saw it as like oh this makes sense like uh algo stable coins were were still kind of also like acceptable you know what I mean like there were quite a few of them around I think there was of course some rugs or failed versions like Apple fourth and base his cash and stuff like this right and then all the forks on binance margin as well but uh it like it kind of looked like a stable like an algo stable coin to me I know it's not but you know it's still it can be kind of like if you explain it as an algo stable coin then it kind of makes it a little bit less difficult for people to understand what's going on right like why there's beans and what other beans coming from but I think that's what mainly attracted me to it was like it was like a challenge for my mind and like sometimes I I make videos and I'm like okay that's done and I feel good and I feel I walk away from the computer after it's published and shared and tweeted out and I feel like oh you know I feel kind of proud of like oh my ability to to take that complex thing and and simplify it down into simple simple uh a simple video for people to understand and Beanstalk did that for me to to a high degree because it was it was a challenge to understand yeah I mean that's it what um I hear over and over again is that it's very much like an onion not to not to stick too close to the uh the farming analogies but you know Bean is like an onion in the sense that they're you know there are enough layers to where you can build a cursor every knowledge and you say okay there's something more here you know okay I I get the idea that the price of it being oscillates around a dollar you know that's like you said it's you can essentially equate it to any other algo staple but then you start to work into deeper layers and you find more and more things to learn about and to to jump off into and it's uh it's really it's one of the things that that bean offers that's particularly unique and I would say continuing to to grow in terms of its depth and richness like I even consider the US dollar in algo stable coin right sure like it's just the algorithm is just not on chain and not predictable right so I I don't think the the the algo ver the algal aspect of of a stable coin is what makes it a problem you know like like Luna did not fail because it was an algo stable coin it failed because it was backed by Luna and that aspect of is what made it go to zero right or maybe you don't want to call it going to zero now because it's not at zero right but that's what made the the wreckage happen right so like you know the US Dollars backed by what like basically government belief right which is you know even I don't know maybe better maybe worse than being backed by Luna right that's I don't have a comment on that because it's it's it has been proven to be effective you know that you know back a your the US dollar backed by the the infrastructure of the US government right in in that sense and all of the aspects that they they employ to to give it value right so yeah so Beanstalk uh the only thing I I find that about Beanstalk that is kind of a uh a deterrent maybe uh maybe a reason for people to kind of look away is because of the farm theme you know you mentioned the farm theme and maybe people think of it like oh magic beans what's what's this you know they don't take it seriously right because of it's their beans right like I like it because I'm djin right and uh you know the idea of like you know Going Back to Basics and you know using beans is like is a monetary like a token like a value or trade a monetary unit you don't understand it's for trade and selling and stuff as a dollar I like this idea but like there's like all the fairy tales about Jack and his magic beanstalks you stupid idiot why'd you trade our cow for beans right you know there's I think people might kind of go to that but when they start digging deep in their intelligent and they have the ability to to like the IQ high enough to be able to actually or the motivation to apply their IQ to understanding it then they they see like what you said like the layers of complexity and interestingness like I do like it and uh I don't I have you know I have my beans siled and I try to I don't have any intention of like you know exiting hugely but I'm also you know heavy into the what do you call them the the unripe yeah unripe yeah there we go unripe Pizza I'm kind of heavy into that so that's kind of where most of my are my aren't we all yeah yeah exactly well Caesar thank you so much for talking with us thank you for your time it was a great conversation I always appreciate your appreciate all the work that you're doing and uh not only you know in researching and and creating videos about being but about defy in general and in cryptocurrency so thank you so much for all of it I appreciate it thanks for having me guys absolutely you can find Caesar on YouTube at Caesar's snack sandwich and that Caesar spelled c-e-a-z-o-r the bean pod is a production of Beanstalk Farms a decentralized autonomous organization you can find us on Twitter Instagram medium Discord and our home on the web at bean.money you can also find me on Twitter at Rex the beat and as a final reminder this podcast is not Financial advice thanks again for listening [Music]