In this episode of Block and Order, Kyle and Moish sit down with Zeneca for a fun and insightful chat about the wild world of NFTs and crypto. Zeneca opens up about his journey from poker tables to becoming a go-to voice in the crypto scene. He shares stories and advice on handling the highs and lows of NFT trading and discusses what the future might hold. It’s a laid-back and enlightening conversation, perfect for anyone eager to get a better handle on the exciting twists and turns of the NFT space.

Be sure to follow Zeneca on Twitter: https://x.com/Zeneca

Subscribe to Block and Order to learn more about the latest news in blockchain, web3, and crypto!

Join our Substack to stay informed: https://blockandorder.substack.com/subscribe

Follow B+O on Our Socials:

Twitter: @BAndOShow
LinkedIn: Block & Order
Instagram: @blockandorder
Tiktok: @blockandorder

Chapter Markers:

00:00 Welcome to Block and Order
05:15 Welcome to our guest (Zeneca)
06:20 What are you up to these days?
06:56 What is your book going to be about?
08:00 Do you see an overlap between poker players and crypto traders?
09:46 What are 3 tips you would give to someone getting started in crypto trading?
13:05 What is your philosophy for approaching a crypto market as opposed to the traditional financial markets?
16:12 What was the first digital asset you bought when you switched from poker to crypto?
17:14 Why do you believe we are in the early stages of an NFT bull run?
20:12 How do you analyze what a potential new NFT cycle might look like, what its implications could be, and whether it would present a viable investment opportunity?
23:04 What is your role in the space and how has it evolved since you started?
26:39 What was your goal with ZenAcademy and what have you learned along the way?
29:46 What is the solve for forced NFT royalties not being enforced at the smart contract level?
33:23 Do you think there is a place for memecoins in crypto?
35:40 How have you navigated the legal process as a founder in crypto?
46:34 What topics are you going to cover in your newsletter and how do you pick those topics?
48:04 Thank you to our guest
49:43 Closing Remarks

Watch or listen to the podcast here:

   

Transcript:

**This transcript has been prepared automatically by AI and may contain inaccuracies**

Kyle Lawrence [00:00:10]:
Welcome to Block and Order, the show that explores the legal issues facing the world of Web3 and beyond. I’m Kyle Lawrence and with me as always, believe it or not, he has never worn a shirt a second time on this show. Unlike me, Mr. Moish Peltz.

Moish Peltz [00:00:24]:
But somehow when I do wear a new shirt, you’re wearing green. So here we go.

Kyle Lawrence [00:00:29]:
It’s. Well, you know, we’re following St. Patrick’s Day, green is in my heart and in my soul and in my blood. So here we are.

Moish Peltz [00:00:35]:
Yeah, pinch me. All right, cool.

Kyle Lawrence [00:00:38]:
So before we get into the topic, I just have to share a personal note. My beautiful little dog is sitting here right behind me because she had surgery the other day and she’s having major surgery on Thursday and I’m a mess thinking about it and she is so upset. Post up a little picture of her and her donut of shame. I feel so bad for her.

Moish Peltz [00:00:55]:
Yeah. Let’s put up a photo so everyone can see. How cute. But wishing you and her best of luck on Thursday.

Kyle Lawrence [00:01:01]:
Thank you. Thank you. Well, we do have a very special episode for our guests out there today. Zeneca XYZ stopped by to join us to talk about NFTs, the do’s and don’ts of people’s adventures in crypto and what he’s up to. And what a fascinating guy, what a great story he is to tell. What a great guest.

Moish Peltz [00:01:19]:
Yeah, Zeneca is someone that I started following as we. I tell him in the episode, you know, very early on, sometime in 2021, when I first got into NFTs and bored apes, I think, and he was one of the early board ape holders and quickly became one of the most followed people in crypto Twitter. And so he has a very different approach to crypto than we do from a legal perspective. And I think it’s a different voice on the show. I think it’s actually our first non legal guest on the show, I think.

Kyle Lawrence [00:01:57]:
Yeah, I think you’re right. Wow, we’ve made it so far.

Moish Peltz [00:02:01]:
If you’ve been following us for all our legal content, don’t worry, we still talk some legal stuff in the middle, but, you know, this is a little different for us.

Kyle Lawrence [00:02:09]:
I think one of the things that I really took from our conversation because I had never spoken with him directly before, the humility with which he approaches this. And he said he’s somebody who’s had a lot of success in this field. And if you follow him on Twitter and you get his newsletter, one thing that comes across in his writing and it really comes across as speaking with him is, you know, a lot of people are braggadocious and they talk about, I made millions and I did this, and I own a punk and I own an ape and I’m. And I’m rich and blah, blah, blah. And that’s great. But for every person that is like that, there’s millions of other people who did not do so well. And I think one of the things that is important for everyone to realize is that somebody who is successful, like Zeneca is, has had his fair share of defeat. And it’s important to take those in stride and realize that it’s part of the process.

Kyle Lawrence [00:02:54]:
And you win some and you lose some, and to knock it too down, not get too high when you win, not get too low when you lose. And it was just a refreshing take to hear from somebody who is so entrenched in this space.

Moish Peltz [00:03:06]:
Well, yeah, I think that’s a big part about, you know, one being, being a lawyer is like being objective and thinking about what’s, what’s, what’s good and what’s bad and learning from mistakes. And I think one of the things I really enjoy about his approach and his content and his writing is he. He has that zen kind of approach of never too high, never too low. You know, he talks about how he keeps a trading journal and he, he reflects upon the things and now he’s devolved and taking profits.

Moish Peltz [00:03:36]:
And these are all things I think we can ascribe to, to do as investors. But I think also just in the way we. We approach, you know, the way we give advice and communicate with people and ultimately work in this industry, I think it’s something. It’s a. It’s a very high and low industry. And the only thing a way, I think, you know, for me just to survive is to, you know, just never get too high and never get too low. It’s all. It’s, you know, just kind of thinking about it.

Kyle Lawrence [00:04:02]:
It’s true. I mean, I could keep a trading journal as well, so I can cry myself to sleep at night, but that’s for another day. It’s not that bad, actually.

Moish Peltz [00:04:09]:
I can’t. I can’t keep a trading journal just because, like, it’s the same thing of, like, you know, don’t, like, keep, like, tracking my time. It’s just like. It’s too much. Like, it’s. It’s. It’s like one more thing that I need to do. Like.

Kyle Lawrence [00:04:20]:
Right.

Moish Peltz [00:04:21]:
But I did do it for a while because I like Zeneca. I used to play poker pretty competitively. And this is what you do. You have. You have a book, and you write down all the things you do, and you write down your. Your good hands and your bad hands, and you look back at it and you learn. And the more you do that, the more you learn from it. So it’s.

Moish Peltz [00:04:36]:
There’s definitely something there. It’s just. It’s really hard to keep up with that.

Kyle Lawrence [00:04:40]:
It’s. You know, it’s definitely a habit worth getting into. It’s easy to fall out of it. Yeah, I. I’ve tried journaling and in other facets of life, and I’ve never kept that up for more than, like, a year, so. Yeah, but that. That doesn’t mean it’s great advice where.

Moish Peltz [00:04:52]:
We build and maintain those good habits.

Kyle Lawrence [00:04:54]:
Kyle, we should have a Block and Order journal of everything we do here on the show. And every time we think about it whilst driving down the road, we’re onto something.

Moish Peltz [00:05:04]:
Here we are. I think we need branded journals for giveaways at bitcoin in Vegas, which is where, if you want to see us next, you should. You should. Coming hangout.

Kyle Lawrence [00:05:15]:
All right, producer Shaun, you got your orders. Well, without further ado, let’s kick it off to our conversation with Zeneca. Please enjoy, everybody. Well, joining us on Block and Order today, a very special guest, the one, the only, Zeneca XYZ. Welcome to the show, my friend.

Zeneca [00:05:32]:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Kyle Lawrence [00:05:35]:
We’re excited to have you. How’s the weather down under?

Zeneca [00:05:39]:
It’s pretty good. Raining all week, but it’s warm. It’s. What is it, autumn here? So. Yeah, can’t complain too much.

Kyle Lawrence [00:05:46]:
We don’t have seasons here anymore. It’s just. It’s just cold, and then it’s blisteringly hot, and then it gets cold again. I don’t know what happened.

Moish Peltz [00:05:53]:
Yeah, we can’t think beyond that.

Zeneca [00:05:55]:
Something, something. Climate change, something.

Kyle Lawrence [00:05:58]:
Well, right, I guess it depends on who you ask. I don’t know if it’s legal in the United States to talk about that anymore.

Zeneca [00:06:04]:
Well, that’s a whole other rabbit hole, but something’s happening, whether it’s human impacted or not. But yeah, let’s not go down that rabbit hole.

Kyle Lawrence [00:06:14]:
Probably smart move to not start the show off that way. Alienate half our guests. So what’s going on in your neck of the woods? What are you up to these days? Obviously, you have a tremendous. You’ve put out a lot of stuff on Twitter, which I find endlessly fascinating. You have a lot of content that you put out. What are you up to these days? What can you share with the group?

Zeneca [00:06:34]:
I’m writing a lot more, so I’m focusing on my newsletter now. Twice a week, sending that out. But also a book I’m working on, a book that is hopefully going to be out in the next couple of months. Been working on it for six months now, but it’s very sporadic on and off. But yeah, lately it’s been a renewed focus on it, so. So yeah, that’s taking most of my time.

Kyle Lawrence [00:06:56]:
What’s the book going to be about, if you can share?

Zeneca [00:06:59]:
Yeah, definitely. It’s basically a collection of lessons and things that I’ve learned as a poker trader. All the mistakes I’ve made. Sorry. As a crypto trader, all the mistakes I’ve made. And then also as a poker player before that. So, like, yeah, everything. Bankroll management, risk management, how to find alpha invalidation, 50 different things, how to take profits, when to take profits, journaling, yada, yada, yada.

Zeneca [00:07:29]:
So yeah, that’s it.

Kyle Lawrence [00:07:32]:
Is it one of those classic do as I say, not as I do type of stratagems that I often employ, you know, in my.

Zeneca [00:07:38]:
Pretty much, yeah. In the first chapter I say that, you know, the book’s going to be full of like all these things and you should consider them as like tools in your toolbox. Sometimes you’ll use some, sometimes you use others. Some people will be good with some of them and some people will prefer others. Like I don’t do everything in the book all the time. So yeah, I don’t expect anyone else to just pick and choose what works for you, basically.

Moish Peltz [00:08:00]:
Well, I have a question because I know that you came in as a former poker player and I was never professional or anything, but I did play a ton of poker and I’ve just seen as I run into people in the crypto industry that there’s a lot of former or professional or just amateur poker players and some curious as, as you’ve come across if you’ve seen that and if so, you know why you think that is.

Zeneca [00:08:25]:
Oh, yeah, it’s. It’s insane the number of poker players that have come over. It’s at the point where I would struggle to think of any friend I made through poker or poker player that I know who isn’t also in crypto. Some of them are full time, some of them just part part time. But I think a lot of it has to do with a lot of overlap in the. Just the industries you have dealing with money and risk and making and losing large sums on a regular basis. You have the psychology of it all. Like poker is PvP playing against other people.

Zeneca [00:09:01]:
Trading crypto is kind of the same. It’s just you playing against a much larger pool of opponents. The research, the studying, it’s, it’s, there’s so many similarities that it’s not a surprise to me that, that poker players have made the jump over and not just to crypto. Before crypto a lot of poker players were moving to like traditional trading day trading and stuff like that.

Kyle Lawrence [00:09:21]:
So yeah, yeah, that’s definitely interesting to think about. Fun fact about me, I am atrocious at poker, but I’m an excellent blackjack player and having spent a lot of time, I used to live in California and I went to Vegas constantly. It’s been a while since I’ve been there and I’ve had some, some pretty high highs and some pretty awful soul crushing lows similar to how people are in crypto. So it’s definitely a natural progression. What would you say if you were to give kind of three quick lessons to people who are just getting into this? What would be the third? The first three things you would suggest.

Zeneca [00:09:53]:
To them in terms of like trading in crypto? Yeah, first is have patience. I think too many people rush into things, FOMO into things, think that they. Yeah, it’s like everyone is looking for things to buy. They’re like, you know, I want to find the gem, I want to find a good altcoin, I want to find a memecoin, I want to find an NFT collection, I think you should revert that and instead look at every coin and find the reasons why you shouldn’t be buying it. And then when you find it and come across something and you have no reasons why you shouldn’t buy it, then that seems like a good thing to buy and that requires patience. Another rule would be or suggestion would be to try and implement some systems because when you’re in the middle of the thick of it that your emotions are running high, it’s going to be difficult to make rational, logical decisions. If you at least ahead of time write down some systems in terms of like if I 2x a position, I’m going to take 50%, I’m going to sell 50% and profit that way or at least get my initial out. If it hits a new all time high, I’m going to shave off 10% every single time.

Zeneca [00:10:54]:
Whenever I do take profits, I’m going to take 10 or 20% of that and Send it to a cold hardware wallet or withdraw it to my bank account. These types of things are. Even if you write them down, it’s not always easy to execute, but it is a lot easier to execute if you have written them down. And I guess the third thing is an extension of that, but it’s just sort of write a lot of stuff down. So like journal journaling is incredibly powerful if you’re trading, keeping a trading log. So whenever you’re about to buy something or you’ve just bought something, entered into your trading log with the date, the price, but the reason for buying, invalidation. So like you have a thesis for buying the thing, what would make you change your mind? So like, you know, you buy in because a project is. You like the team very much and then all of a sudden there’s some drama with the team or the team leaves or they’re about to launch a new product and it launches and it flops.

Zeneca [00:11:46]:
You have some reason for like when are you going to sell if things go wrong, as well as set a price target. So I think that again, it’s not always easy to sell in the thick of it. But if you’ve, you know, bought something that’s a token at a dollar and then you say I’m going to sell all of it if it hits $8 and then it gets to $8, it’s a lot easier to sell if you’ve made that plan ahead of time than just trying to expect future you to make a good decision at that point. So yeah, I think, I think those.

Moish Peltz [00:12:16]:
Are all three things you could probably could have taken from poker, right? About keeping your journal and being level headed. And I think a lot you can see in your philosophy, I think a lot perhaps comes from that. I know a lot of professional traders have a similar philosophy. But then my question is crypto can be as easy as it is to say, let’s just be level headed. It does feel like a very emotional type of trading. And even getting into things that are NFTs and things like that are very much. There’s not really a rational objective. I mean, I’m thinking like let’s put this in a portfolio and let’s do a risk adjusted kind of strategy against this.

Moish Peltz [00:12:57]:
It seems all new and extra emotional. So how do you balance those different philosophies? And really what is your philosophy approaching this kind of market as opposed to the traditional financial markets or even poker, which even seems like people have solved it and have books on it and there is this more emotional aspect to it, but it can be controlled because that’s people, not ether.

Zeneca [00:13:26]:
Poker is like, it’s math and game theory and you can largely solve it and people have solved like, you know, heads up, limit hold’em or even full limit hold’em and other things like that. Trading is different because like you say, there’s emotion, there’s randomness, uncertainty, and especially in crypto, fundamentals basically don’t matter. Especially for short and medium term price action. What’s going to happen to a token is almost entirely dependent on attention and momentum and vibes, for lack of a better word, and what people think of it, which I think is just, it’s just a reality and it just changes how you should be thinking about these things. To sort of like take it a step further. I’ve been thinking about it a little bit again for the book when you really start to break it down. Why does anything have value? A thing has value because other people think it has value. It’s true of gold, it’s true of Apple, it’s true of this, that and the other.

Zeneca [00:14:27]:
Now some of them might have some sort of quote unquote fundamentals behind it, but at the very core it’s like people still think it has value or will have value for one reason or another. So when it comes to these tokens that have little to no fundamentals, or even the ones that do have fundamentals, quote unquote fundamentals, maybe it’s revenue stream or a working product, or if it’s just a pure memecoin, it just depends. Are other people going to think that it’s got value? So the goal is to find things that you think are undervalued, but also that other people will think are undervalued and is undervalued. So yeah, it’s not. Yeah, it’s not math as much.

Kyle Lawrence [00:15:09]:
It’s interesting you raised that point, I guess. Lecturer at Stony Brook University and most recently I was teaching them about NFTs and what they are and what function do they serve. And the question that all of the students had was what makes them valuable? We had OpenSea up on the overhead projector and we’re looking at Board Ape Yacht Club. And they’re like, why is these so much money? And I was like, actually right now that’s a great price. But the question of where does the value come from? It was just. They couldn’t seem to wrap their heads around. It’s something that I’ve personally interested in and have studied. So it’s interesting that you bring that up.

Kyle Lawrence [00:15:46]:
And the sort of analogy I always give when the students ask that is, well, you know, out here in the real world, what has value? It’s money. It’s, it’s how we buy things. It’s how we, we, we work for it. If you go to prison, what’s valuable? Is it money or is it soap and cigarettes and things? So it’s interesting that that’s on top of mind. And because I never really ascribed it to, you know, the game theory aspect of it, that was a long winded way of me going around and asking you the question of what was the very first digital asset you ever bought when you made the move over.

Zeneca [00:16:20]:
The first one I ever owned, believe it or not, was Bitcoin in 2011 or something like that. I almost discount it and don’t think about it because again, it goes back to poker. But US government passed some legislation that made it effectively impossible for Americans to play online poker back in 2011. And so most professionals went to Vegas or Canada or Mexico or somewhere else, but some young or some enterprising person said, hey, what’s this bitcoin digital currency thing? And created this poker site. We could play in bitcoin. So I did play a little bit back then, but it was basically always converted straight back to US dollars. And I didn’t look into it too much. The first real one was either Bitcoin or ETH in 2017.

Zeneca [00:17:03]:
I can’t remember which one I bought first, but that was when I first started really digging into it and be like, you know what, there is something of substance here. It has long term value. And yeah, off to the races from there.

Kyle Lawrence [00:17:14]:
And I saw that you’ve been tweeting recently about how we are in the sort of early stages of a new NFT Bull run. Can you expand upon that, why you think that is and where you think we’re going?

Zeneca [00:17:25]:
Fingers crossed. Yeah. I actually very top of mind because I published my newsletter last night on this topic and it’s basically a couple of factors. One is if you look historically at every previous NFT Bull run, obviously the main year of 2021, but there was, you know, late 2023 and late 2024, even bullish period, they all were kicked off by punks, crypto punks sort of having a flurry of sales. And we’ve just seen that over the last few weeks, even in the last hour, I think they were like 15 sales or something crazy. That does not necessarily mean that there has to be a bull run. There’s been Points in time where punks have done well and NFTs haven’t afterwards. But I can’t think of a time when NFTs have done well that didn’t first begin with punks kicking it off.

Zeneca [00:18:10]:
So I think that’s the first sort of canary in the coal mine signal. And then the other is that one of the other ones is that recently, A couple of weeks ago last week. Time is weird. Two collections started really making waves. One was Good Vibes Club and the other was the Masks of Lucci by or Lucy by Sam Spratt. And in both cases both very different projects. One is art and one is 10k pfp. But in both instances people were sharing their NFTs in the timeline, having fun, enjoying them, number went up, which is one of the best marketing tools.

Zeneca [00:18:46]:
People were buying rares, especially Good Vibes clubs, which people don’t do in bearish markets or bearish trends. So another just sort of inclination that hey, maybe there’s some energy and excitement coming back into the NFT space and we see things start to kick off again from here. So yeah, those are a few reasons and hopefully this momentum continues.

Kyle Lawrence [00:19:08]:
Well, there was definitely a lot more action on NFTs, more so than we’ve seen in recent years. And a couple of weeks ago that we saw was it Mega Eth had a huge launch and Abstract brought it back into mainstream. So yeah, let’s see. I definitely have some that could use a little boost. I think we all do.

Moish Peltz [00:19:26]:
Well, I’m curious, you know, your reflections upon the previous NFT Bull cycle and how you now taking a moment few years later on what your thoughts are, looking back on that era and then what you think now, what have you learned from that past era? Now when you’re thinking about, okay, there’s going to be potentially, fingers crossed, another NFT cycle, what does that mean? Because I doubt just like every cycle in traditional tokens looks a little bit different, it’s not just the same run. But NFTs are different, right, because they’re not just a memecoin or bitcoin or something else. They have this own cultural kind of element to it. So how do you even begin to analyze what another NFT cycle might look like and what that might mean and, and whether that’s even investable.

Zeneca [00:20:20]:
Yeah, I think, I mean 2021 was a fever dream. It was the bubble to end all bubbles. Absolute mania. I don’t think we ever see anything like that with NFTs again, sadly. But it was, it was true madness things I Learned were obviously take more profits and have systems set up in advance because when you’re in the thick of it, your your mind thinks absolutely crazy things like yeah, this pixelated image of an owl is worth US$120,000 and so on and so forth.

Kyle Lawrence [00:20:50]:
I’m actually holding an owl right now, as you said.

Zeneca [00:20:53]:
There you go.

Kyle Lawrence [00:20:54]:
How’d you do that? That’s amazing.

Zeneca [00:20:56]:
Wow. I have a moonbird sticker on my desk. That’s why in front of mine, my friend Greg who lost a bunch of moonbuds.

Kyle Lawrence [00:21:04]:
We’re on the same wavelength, man. I like it.

Zeneca [00:21:06]:
Yeah. So yeah, just set systems up in advance and that kind of stuff. I think that we will definitely have future bull cycles or seasons or periods for NFTs. We have had some since 2021 and we’ll continue to have them. I think they’ll basically just generally follow a flight to quality where the best, the most culturally relevant historical collections, things like punks, squiggles, autoglyphs, et cetera will I believe just generally trend up and to the right over time as art tends to do. The PFP style projects that maintain a community and maintain a relevance, like Pudgy penguins being a great example. Apes are still doing great things, will maintain some amount of value and they’ll probably ebb and flow in terms of price and then new things. I think that one of the most exciting areas is all of the new NFT style launches that there will be and whether that’s in gaming or whether it’s an AI agent that’s an NFT or real world assets or you know, at the end of the day NFT NFTs are just a technology and you can basically build anything non fungible and digital on top of it.

Zeneca [00:22:16]:
So yeah, it’ll be different for sure there will be. I also don’t think it’ll be like a rising tide lifts all. There’ll be like pockets that outperform and others that don’t. And one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since 21, not just for NFTs, for everything investing, is that you’re much better off just piling most of your capital into like the top five or ten things you have the highest conviction in rather than splitting it in between 100 things trying to find the moonshots. So like if I had a lot of capital I’d probably deploy into NFTs. I would probably put it into like punks and like maybe pudgies and maybe some art rather than try and find like, rather than buying 50 or something at 0.1 each or 1 ETH, go buy one thing that’s really expensive.

Moish Peltz [00:23:04]:
So I guess the same question for you personally then, because I remember following you back in 2021 or 2022, and I think you were, as was I, you buy the long tail of the hundred top projects. I remember distinctly you saying something like, you need to hire an intern to sell all of the 100, whatever project you never thought about. So how did you, you know, professionally? You know, I don’t know what you would even call what you do in the ecosystem, whether it’s just an influencer or some other word which has taken on, you know, perhaps a negative connotation. But then what do you think of yourself? What was your thoughts about what you were doing and communicating publicly during that time? And then how are you approaching, you know, now? I know you have a newsletter, you’re writing a book. I think there’s a bit of a different tenor about what you’re doing and what you think of yourself and how you communicate in the space. So just what’s, what’s the evolution there?

Zeneca [00:24:02]:
Yeah, So, I mean, 21 was weird because with NFTs, you didn’t have blur. You didn’t have marketplaces where you could sell multiple NFTs at once or list them at once. It was literally one by one, independently. It would take time. Gas was really high. So that friction, among other things, led me to just hold way too much since then. Like In, I’d say August 21st or even like April 2022, 99% of my net worth was in NFTs, not just crypto net worth. And actually, no, in 2022 it wasn’t 21.

Zeneca [00:24:41]:
Yes. And basically all I’ve been doing since then is just trying to get that percentage down, and that’s by selling it, taking it out of crypto, putting it in a bank or recently bought an apartment, or putting it into other crypto tokens, whether it’s keeping it in ETH or SOL or other whatever. And I think I’m down to probably around 20% now, which is still high by most people’s standards. I think in crypto to have 20% of NFTs. If I’m very bullish NFTs though, and I’m very bullish the collections I hold. So I feel pretty comfortable with it at this point. I’m not looking to significantly reduced there. Yeah, so it was.

Zeneca [00:25:21]:
It’s just been like a crazy few years because I never planned or expected to sort of have a large following or A platform or anything like this. It just sort of happened during 2021 because I was writing about NFTs and not that many other people were and everyone in the world was talking about them. So just people just flooded in. I definitely have done less trading 2022 and 2023. A lot of my time was focused on Zen Academy and just sort of like trying to turn that into a sustainable business, which we largely failed at, but it was a lot of work and it was interesting and all that kind of stuff. And then since then it’s been trying to figure out what next to focus on. And so it’s like I’ve been like a little bit of trading, a little bit of investing, a little bit of advising, a little bit of writing, all these kind of various things where I’m just a bunch of different things. But now in the last month or so I’ve had this new focus on specifically writing.

Zeneca [00:26:19]:
I want to just like focus more of my time around that as well as like managing my crypto positions. But a lot of my, my ethos now is fewer positions, less time to manage and for once I am listening to my own advice.

Kyle Lawrence [00:26:36]:
Something we should all be doing.

Moish Peltz [00:26:38]:
Yeah, well, so you mentioned Zen Academy and full disclosure, I’m, I’m a holder and have been a holder since the day you released it and I’m just curious what, you know, what you went into that project. I mean if you were looking at your trading journal when, when you started that project, what was your hope and aim and goal for it and, and what did you really learn about it? So you say you said it failed. What, what makes you think it, it failed and, or I don’t know if that’s exactly how you describe it, but where do you see it now and what have you learned on the way?

Zeneca [00:27:09]:
Yeah, I would say it failed to turn into a profitable revenue generating business as a whole. I would say it’s very much succeeded and I’m very happy and proud of everything we did and where we still are today. In terms of what I went into it with, there was really nothing like we had a Discord server. I knew I wanted to create some sort of educational platform community thing around that and NFTs were all the rage. So I said let’s try with the NFT membership model. I told everyone from the beginning, hey, I have no idea where this will go. This is an experiment, could all go to zero years from now. All we could be is a Discord server, et cetera, et cetera.

Zeneca [00:27:52]:
And from there once we Sort of minted out and a little bit of time went on. It started to be like, all right, let’s hire a couple people to help with the Discord and okay, let’s hire someone else to help with growing out other parts and creating content and tech and website and all this kind of stuff. Eventually we ended up doing a PFP project. We made a whole bunch of courses along the way. But yeah, so I mean I’ve learned so much. If I ever found a business again or start a business or run a company, I would do many, many, many, many things differently. I think most first time founders make a lot of mistakes but I’m very grateful for the experience and I think that it was like we did a lot of good things. Like we had free courses that onboarded 10,000 plus people into crypto.

Zeneca [00:28:40]:
We had, it was taught in even a few universities. I made several video courses and yeah, I mean the goal accomplished in terms of educating and onboarding and these days we’re still around Discord Server, sort of like navigating the space together and new things pop up where like we talk about AI agents and find opportunities, share new tokens and just try and learn together now.

Moish Peltz [00:29:08]:
Yeah, I can say firsthand the amount of content you’ve created over the years is incredible and the amount of educational opportunities and things like that. So job well done on that. And it’s kind of the one frustrations, and we see this a lot right is there’s so many people come in and they start up projects with such ambition and just the math means not all of them can succeed. And there’s you know, good intentions and amazing things along the way. It’s just sometimes that doesn’t quite fight. Find that you know, revenue generating ideal tough.

Zeneca [00:29:38]:
And NFTs, especially when it went into a bear market and royalties largely went away, I think a lot of people.

Kyle Lawrence [00:29:46]:
Right?

Zeneca [00:29:46]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s kind of common knowledge now but like a massive part of the narrative in 2021 was NFTs have these forced royalties so artists can always receive money and people could build business models around it. And then one day someone was like hang on guys, it’s actually not enforced at the smart contract level. And all of us non tech heads were like what? That was not what we were told. So yeah.

Moish Peltz [00:30:12]:
So what’s the solve for that? Is it migrating to a new ERC standard that enforces royalties or is it a new business model that improves upon the past or both?

Zeneca [00:30:25]:
Hybrid. Hybrid. I think it’s very tough to create a new token standard that does this without having significant and severe other restrictions. I know that there’s ERC 721C, I think, but Limit Break created it and it seems to be able to enforce royalties somehow. And some people are using that. So that’s one standard. The other is to, if you are trying to run a business, integrate NFTs as like a hybrid model. So if I were to launch Zen Academy again today and make it like an education, content based business membership group, I would, with NFTs as well, I would say, you know, we’re going to do a membership model, 25, $30 a month to join.

Zeneca [00:31:09]:
If you have one of our NFTs, it’s 50 off. If you have one of our three to three Club NFTs, of which there are only 333, you get free lifetime access. And I think that hybrid model can work. Probably you need less supply of the NFTs and to make it a more exclusive group, but that way you’re not relying on royalties, you have regular incoming revenue. And the last thing is, especially for artists who aren’t trying to create a business, models per se around it, are just trying to sell art, but ideally would like to get royalties. It’s more of a cultural thing and it’s kind of like curating your collector base in a way. So ideally having people collect your work that want to pay royalties kind of. Yeah.

Zeneca [00:31:58]:
Someone once made the analogy it was kind of like tipping in America where it’s not the law, but culturally you’re kind of ostracized if you don’t do it and people think you’re a terrible person. I think that isn’t truly the case in NFTs, but certainly within the art circles in NFTs it is kind of the case, especially if you’ve made a lot of money on the token. I think Sam Spratt has done something really interesting where the royalty percentage scales depending on how much profit the owner has made when they sell, and if they sell for a loss, there’s no royalties. And I think that is a brilliant, fantastic, aligned incentive model that hopefully more people replicate.

Moish Peltz [00:32:41]:
What do you think of the, the one that people suggested which that the buyer should pay. And as they’re joining, as they’re, as they’re buying, they’re the one that’s incentivized to now join the community. And so they, they’re the ones that should agree to buy. And then as a creator, you could say only purchasers that have paid the royalty can get, you know, this tier of benefits or whatever it may be.

Zeneca [00:33:04]:
Yeah, I think that model can work. I think a few projects have done something similar where it’s maybe not the buyer pays, but if. No, it is actually it is. The royalty has to be paid in order to get discord access or to get membership perks or something like that. Yeah, I think that can work.

Kyle Lawrence [00:33:23]:
What do you think? If we can pivot away from NFTs for a second, we are in something of a bear market for memecoins. I don’t know where do you think is there a place in crypto for memecoins? We’ve seen a lot of good and we’ve seen a lot of just bad people getting absolutely wrecked in the trenches. Do you think there’s a future here for this? Or once this bubble bursts, is there a way for memecoins to exist and serve some kind of function in the ecosystem as opposed to get into the first 30 minutes, make money and get out and walk away and don’t get stuck holding the bag?

Zeneca [00:33:58]:
I think obviously almost everything has gone to zero and, and this bubble will burst and we probably won’t have the same mania again. But I think there’s a higher likelihood of another memecoin mania that like we’ve seen the last six months than. Than there is of another NFT mania than we saw in 2021 because it’s so fast.

Kyle Lawrence [00:34:19]:
It’s. It’s like it’s almost too easy to launch them.

Zeneca [00:34:23]:
Exactly. I think that a lot of people have gotten wrecked and hurt and it’s just generally not been great for them and their experience in the space and that kind of stuff. I do think that some memecoins will survive and there will be a place for them long term. And you just look at Doge, it’s sustained. Sure, 10 figure market cap or tens of billions for many, many, many years. There’s probably a handful more that can do that sort of thing. And at a certain point these memecoin memecoins are kind of like a larger NFT community. You don’t have the individual token with the JPEG and that thing, but you have thousands or tens of thousands of holders.

Zeneca [00:35:08]:
And some of these projects are having parties at Art Basel. Some of them are token gating. If you own this much of the token, you get access to this airdrop or this, that or the other in partnerships. And so real communities are forming around them. And I think that there’s value in that. But we don’t need nearly as many as we have. No, we don’t need nearly as many L1 blockchains, L2 blockchains. There’s a lot of crypto that we don’t need, but this is how we figure out what we do need.

Zeneca [00:35:37]:
What has staying power is by throwing everything into the wall and seeing what sticks.

Moish Peltz [00:35:40]:
Well, I did want to ask you. This is ostensibly a legal show and you’ve had a lot of experience through Zen Academy, you being yourself a founder, and then through the 333 club, where I understand you advise other businesses of dealing with just lots of different businesses in this ecosystem as an investor, as a founder, as an advisor. And so I’m curious from your perspective across all these different projects, how you’ve seen founders or yourself navigate the legal process and the types of difficulties and barriers you’ve experienced across that experience.

Zeneca [00:36:25]:
Yeah, I mean, I think as a first time founder there’s, I mean there’s so much you don’t know and so like you have to figure out what you need legal help for and sometimes you don’t figure it out till it’s too late. Ideally you’ve done some better research and planning and done all that ahead of time. It was really difficult to find good lawyers who understood crypto. Fortunately, I eventually did. I found a great IP lawyer, a tax lawyer, etc. But that was after spending and wasting a bunch of money with worse people. And the last thing I’ll say is I think that. How should I phrase this? I think that you should.

Zeneca [00:37:12]:
I think that it’s fine to sort of like play in a gray zone for a while. If you’re just starting out. You don’t need to spend $50,000 to get pristine terms and conditions and to get everything set up pitch perfect before moving ahead. I would just like again, just start, try and run the business. If it goes well, then start getting some of the legal stuff done. Obviously there’s a couple of things you probably want to do in advance. Business structure and maybe like trademarks or copyright type things. But for the most part I think you can add your terms and conditions later.

Zeneca [00:37:48]:
Use ChatGPT for some of it. And it’s fine for the moment. If you make a bunch of money, then hire expensive lawyers. Otherwise just put some boilerplate template up there and you’ll usually be fine. Curious to know what the two lawyers think about that.

Kyle Lawrence [00:38:04]:
I’m trying to think of the, I’m trying to think of the most sensible way to respond to that. Because it’s funny, I don’t disagree with that. It’s, you know, the reality is I’m going to take my professional ethics hat off for a second. What you just said is true. A lot of people can get by with a pro forma operating agreement that they take off of LegalZoom. A lot of them can. And then as they progress, you know, when you go from a startup with no cash to now regenerating half a million a year and a million a year and so on and so forth, that’s really the time to reexamine those things. Because it’s when you’re successful and you have money to divide and you have important decisions to make, that operating agreement you got from LegalZoom is not going to help you.

Kyle Lawrence [00:38:42]:
It’s going to be a hindrance if you need to make those decisions or heaven forbid if you have a disagreement. So when you do start making money and you want to revisit those things, I actually think that’s fairly prudent advice. And I say that against my own interest as a lawyer who say, no, you should hire us to have a great terms of service because if you get sued, you’re going to be in trouble. Now, there’s always that risk. Now, putting my ethics hat back on everybody listening out there, you do need to be protected. You do need proper documents. But what’s that saying is exactly true, especially if you’re cash strapped. You know, it doesn’t make sense to change the windshield wipers of your junked car if you have no windshield.

Kyle Lawrence [00:39:17]:
You know, kind of thing.

Zeneca [00:39:17]:
You know, it’s all about understanding and accepting risk. And it’s like, you know, if something. If there’s like a 0.1%, 0.01% chance someone’s gonna sue you because of your terms and conditions and because of this out of the other, then you take that risk. If it’s, if there’s like a 20 chance someone’s gonna see your idea and trademark it before you, then that’s probably a risk you don’t want to take. Right? So just that’s how I kind of looked at old kind of legal stuff.

Kyle Lawrence [00:39:48]:
I wonder.

Moish Peltz [00:39:49]:
Now, I do think this is one of the most difficult parts, as I understand of being a founder, is figuring out where to spend money and resources and time. And I do think a lot about how we as attorneys can. There’s a lot of like, fog of war of like, well, what’s, what’s true. What, what should I do? You know, should I file that trademark or should I form the entity? And the reality is we see a lot of companies end up in trouble because they do none of that they just like, oh, they don’t think about it or they don’t. And so I think it’s very different if you’re, if you’re, you’re taking stock and you’re saying, I have so much resources and time and energy and money and these things I just can’t do because I’m not there yet. But as soon as I get to this point I will. Right. Versus like not examining that or not rank ordering and.

Moish Peltz [00:40:39]:
But I do think it’s also true. Right. There’s some things that people can. Let’s use ChatGPT. That’s going to be good enough. And the concern is, and this is what I think it’s on us, you know, not just Kyle and me, but the legal community is to help provide better like you’re providing education and resources and Zen Academy and all these things to help people figure out, like, where do I start if I just want to do like the lowest common denominator, like easiest legal thing, like, what should I do? And I think it’s, there should be a way for people to more easily find resources. Say, all right, you don’t need to do all the bells and whistles, but at least, at least do this or think about this or have a intro conversation with someone about that. And so I think, I think that’s something we, you know, would love suggestions on, you know, how you think people are consuming those types of legal issues and whether there’s an easier way to kind of spoon feed them those ideas.

Zeneca [00:41:35]:
Yeah, it’s. I think it just comes down to, like you said, more education, more content around and I think practical, prudent content around. Like what? Just like, yeah, practical. What you should do, what you should consider if you’re starting a crypto business, if you’re running a crypto company, like the really important things and then the maybe optionally important things early on and just getting, because people want that content information. Like I, when I was running Zen Academy, I was like trying to find it and it was very difficult to find good content on the legal side of things. Basically the way I did it was from someone recommended someone recommend someone. I found a lawyer, actually member of Zen Academy. Two members of Zen Academy did a lot of legal work for us.

Zeneca [00:42:24]:
But once I found the first one, it was like, all right, what do you think of this other person? Or can you recommend someone else who can help with this? And it was just, it was difficult to find good lawyers and good content about what to do. I think though that again, not to Go rely too much on AI. But ChatGPT or whatever can help in terms of ask it, hey, I’m starting a business. What kind of legal things should I be thinking about? And then you have at least a basic understanding and people probably should be doing that. And you can even prepare in advance to, when you do speak with lawyers. So be like, hey, you know what? This is a draft that me and ChatGPT put together of like an employment contract or terms and conditions. Can you just review it rather than create the entire thing from the scratch from the ground up?

Moish Peltz [00:43:11]:
Yeah, I mean, sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s not. I mean, the problem with CHAT GPT is like, if it’s 97% correct, the trick is identifying the 3%. Right.

Zeneca [00:43:22]:
That’s what the lawyer is for.

Moish Peltz [00:43:24]:
Right? That’s right, though. But I think there’s no indicator to the founder that, well, this is like, almost good enough, but you forgot like this little key thing. And there’s no, there’s no negative feedback to them when that happens. And so it requires someone with experience and, you know, some, some gray hairs to say, well, I’ve done, I only know this because I’ve done this 10 times and you need to be worried about that. And that’s not in there. And like, you wouldn’t know that on the public Internet. So Chat GPT wouldn’t know that. Right.

Moish Peltz [00:43:50]:
So it’s, it’s, it’s because these, this is all like cultural. This is where, you know, you found someone because you asked someone who’s someone you can recommend. A lot of introductions we get and we make are all word of mouth. That’s not something that’s like written down on the public Internet. Right. So it’s, it’s, it’s those gaps that the AIs have. Because this is all like word of mouth, cultural knowledge of. Oh, no, this is how actually things are done.

Moish Peltz [00:44:13]:
These are like secrets. Right? Someone was describing the concept of trade secrets in the context of what’s, what’s a trade secret and what’s AI? It’s like, well, those, these are the trade secrets are these things that, like, secrets kind of this big word. But it’s like, oh, I know that when I’m doing this, this is really the way to do that. And like, it wouldn’t be in a casebook, it wouldn’t be in a textbook, wouldn’t be on a blog post. It’s just, well, that’s the way you do things. Because I’ve done it a lot and I’ve Made mistakes and this is a better way of doing it. So. Yeah.

Moish Peltz [00:44:42]:
How do you.

Zeneca [00:44:43]:
Especially for crypto.

Moish Peltz [00:44:44]:
Yeah.

Zeneca [00:44:44]:
Which is so, so fast paced and changing all the time.

Moish Peltz [00:44:48]:
Right. And then you’re, you’re making these decisions in real time when everything’s moving 10,000 times faster than like, all right, then you need an attorney to draft a contract that’s going to be ready in like six days. Right. Yeah.

Kyle Lawrence [00:44:59]:
I wonder if the calculus is different because you’re in Australia. We’re here in the United States. When you look at something and say, well, you can kind of hold off on these things, the likelihood of you getting sued is minimal. Whereas here in the United States, the vast majority of lawsuits in the world are filed right here in the U.S. so, you know, that may depend on, that may dictate just how far you’re willing to go with it. But the one thing that we would always get, and it started back when we formed the digital assets practice group at our firm, and it still happens to this day, both in crypto and in the regular world where two people come to us, oh, we founded this company, we’re doing all these great things, we’re making all this money. Oh, cool. What does your partnership agreement say? Huh? What? He’s my best friend.

Kyle Lawrence [00:45:39]:
I don’t need an agreement. It’s like, let me tell you, the courtrooms of this country are lined with the bodies of dead friendships. It’s unbelievable how, how quickly that can turn.

Zeneca [00:45:53]:
Don’t go into business with your friends, is what I’m hearing.

Kyle Lawrence [00:45:55]:
No, if. When things go sideways, although Moish and I are friends, we’re in business together, but everybody else, it’s like, there’s no honor among thieves.

Zeneca [00:46:02]:
Yeah.

Moish Peltz [00:46:03]:
Yeah.

Zeneca [00:46:03]:
I actually know some people that have done that and done very well, but it probably is the exception to the rule.

Breaking Bad [00:46:11]:
What’ll he do then? Believe me, there’s no honor among thieves.

Breaking Bad [00:46:15]:
Except for us, of course.

Kyle Lawrence [00:46:17]:
Yeah. When things go hairy and you have a bad year, it can test people’s friendships. It’s like, take. It’s like when people raise money from their relatives and then they go at Thanksgiving dinner and it’s like, where’s my money? And it’s like, when I have this turkey for you, like, how’s that?

Zeneca [00:46:33]:
Yeah, that’s. Yeah. Never a good idea.

Moish Peltz [00:46:35]:
So what’s your plan for the newsletter? And, and what sort of topics do you want. Do you want to cover? Is it. And how do you decide about what you’re going to cover?

Zeneca [00:46:45]:
Yeah, there’s so many things so I Release two issues a week now, one on Thursdays, which is just like a small little nugget of wisdom which is just any. Just like kind of like from my book, little lessons I’ve learned across the way that hopefully people find interesting. And then Monday is when I do like a bigger like 1 to 3000 word post and it’s, it’s on like macro thoughts it could be on like this week I spoke about is the NFT bull market starting and some projects I think might be worth looking at to buy. Last week was. Is the bull run over? Because you know, everyone was talking about bitcoin going to hit a new all time high this year. I’ll be doing some deep dives. Like I thinking next week it’ll be on stable coins and just sort of educating people about that whole sector because I don’t think enough people are paying attention and it’s super important. So really it’s just kind of like whatever I want to talk about each week, whatever I find interesting and whatever I’m sensing in the space.

Zeneca [00:47:38]:
And hopefully the readers also appreciate that. The thing it isn’t is an actual newsletter. Like I don’t cover the news. I don’t talk about, hey, this happened today, this big announcement because there’s 8 million of those already out there.

Moish Peltz [00:47:54]:
There. There’s a lot of newsletters out there.

Kyle Lawrence [00:47:57]:
There’s a bunch.

Zeneca [00:47:58]:
We have one at Zen Daily. At Zen Academy we have a daily newsletter that covers the news. So like I don’t need to be doing that.

Moish Peltz [00:48:04]:
Well, thanks for so much for being on the show. Where else can people find about you and your newsletter and then Zen Academy and all the things that you’re doing?

Zeneca [00:48:14]:
Yeah. So Twitter is just Zeneca Z E N E C A and you can find links to Zen Academy from there and everything like that. And then Zeneca XYZ is my newsletter and that will have everything there. And yeah, when I, when I finally get this book written and done, it’ll. I’ll post about it on Twitter and, and via the newsletter as well.

Kyle Lawrence [00:48:36]:
We definitely look forward to further content and we’re definitely going to read your book when it comes out. We encourage all our viewers to do the same and really appreciate your time. You know, thanks for coming by and.

Zeneca [00:48:47]:
I appreciate you both as well. Have any other guests, any previous guests made the joke of how expensive it is because you’re both lawyers and charged by the minute. This podcast, what was the only when.

Moish Peltz [00:49:00]:
They get the invoice?

Kyle Lawrence [00:49:02]:
Exactly.

Zeneca [00:49:03]:
Yeah.

Moish Peltz [00:49:04]:
It’s in the mail. It might take a little time to get to Australia, but don’t worry.

Kyle Lawrence [00:49:07]:
Exactly.

Moish Peltz [00:49:08]:
Well, it’s been, it’s been a pleasure, you know, since I’ve been following you since 2021. So I just want to say thank you on a personal level for all the content you put out there and there’s a lot of people that, that do a lot of work in crypto and I’ve always found you very level headed and Zen in your approach, which I appreciate. And it’s a refreshing take from the usual, like, outsized, insane personalities that occupy a lot of mind space in the crypto. So just, you know, from the heart. Thank you for everything you do and keep it up and looking forward to everything you’ve been talking about.

Zeneca [00:49:42]:
Thank you so much.

Kyle Lawrence [00:49:43]:
Well, that wraps it up for this edition of Block and Order. Please don’t forget to like and subscribe and follow us on all our socials. The links are down below in the show notes. If there’s anything that you want to talk about, please leave a comment down below. We take the comments very seriously. Just remember that nothing you hear on Block and Order is meant to be construed as legal and or financial advice. And the fact that we discuss certain assets on the show is not in any way an endorsement of said assets.

Kyle Lawrence [00:50:07]:
Very special thank you to producer Shaun. Without him, the show would not be possible. So on behalf of Moish Peltz, I’m Kyle Lawrence. Take care, everybody.

Moish Peltz [00:50:14]:
See you next time.

Please note that this show is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not legal advice. Please hire your own attorney. The hosts or guests appearing on Block and Order may hold cryptocurrency, NFTs, or other digital assets from companies mentioned during our programming. This possession of digital assets does not constitute a professional endorsement, legal advice, or financial advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with their own legal and financial advisors for personalized guidance in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.