Launching a token on Base: Talent Protocol's experience

Transcript

GM good morning welcome to the milroad show The Daily crypto show that's as satisfying as realizing you bought all the groceries in one trip I'm your host Jay Hamilton and today we are joined by Pedro CEO at Talent protocol and a base Community leader in Portugal in today's episode we're going to talk all about the War Stories Pedro and his team over at Talent just launched their token a week ago we're going to dive into the war story of what it was like to just launch a token we're also going to talk about bass Bas is one of the fastest growing chains over a million active users 6 million transactions per day but there's no base token so how do you invest in base well you can buy coinbase

stock but how could you invest on chain well you need to look at Aerodrome or Brett or another token on base and now we have talent as well with their token just launching and finally we're going to talk about what is Talent protocol they've got over 1.2 million onchain identities through what they call their talent passport and their token just launched which is up 400% in just one week before we jump into all of this and hear from Pedro I have such exciting news guys if you have not already heard about our crypto investment guide you're G to want to get this this guide is incredible it's free all you have to do is click the link in the show notes or

if you're on YouTube scan the QR code it's going to teach you how to boost your profits of your portfolio with a clear and repeatable strategy everyone's looking for a framework for their investments in crypto and this is the framework that you guys have been looking for it's just it's pure gold I can't wait for you guys to check it out so if you haven't already checked it out make sure you get the free guide today before we jump in we just need to take a moment to hear from our sponsors who make this show possible meet uphold a trading platform that's changing the way you think about money imagine this earning up to 4.9% apy on your US dollar no catch es no lockup periods and no fees and yes it's FDIC insured up to $2.5 million they offer access to over

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passive income second the data quest game where you can boost your earnings and help train their AI visit navigate .io today to earn and own your data Pedro welcome to the show what's up man glad to be back yeah man great to see you last time you were on the show we were web three Academy now we're mil Road much has changed much has changed in my world much has changed in your world first of all congratulations on the token launch that just happened last week I can only imagine how much work and how much stress that was on you and your team you know you're not you're not launching a a meme coin over here you're launching a token which is backed by a real project which is trying to solve a real problem within HR uh and within identity management using blockchain but

before we jump into town protocol and what you guys are doing and what you're building we had Yano Jason yanowitz uh one of the founders of blockworks on the show a few weeks ago we at permission list and he talked about how there are thousands of tokens that are going to be launched from real use cases from real onchain businesses and he thought that wave of tokens is coming I want to know for you guys you launched your token last week what made you decide that now was the right time to launch your token you've been talking about launching it for probably about six months now planning this launch why now why was now the time to launch man the progress

we've made since our last uh chat I mean both of us so we both both deserve congrat congratulations look why now uh uh I didn't think we have a chance really I mean we looked at Runway we looked at uh our product road map and I was like it's now never so basically we were out out of options in a way at the same time the team I mean we just wanted to launch it you know like it's been we're be surv bare Market survivors basically and actually you know what launching uh Talent token was a walk in the park compared to surviving the bare Market uh as you can imagine and um it was matter more like you know we were running out of options you know if not

now then when you know obviously with your launch last week launching your token is very up and down and very difficult and very stressful and you and I were talking before we hit record today that one of the big challenges you have when you launch a token is dealing with all the farmers you have so many farmers leading up to token launch that are involved in your project they're looking to to capitalize on your token launch and that's part of the industry and part of the game but what happens is you launch the token and then a lot of farmers sell and that can affect your price H how you doing man how's how's your stress levels how have you managed through this past week look the thing is we we were prepared I mean look at the the market big picture mind share is

kind of split in between the majors like Bitcoin salana and and you know memes meme coins or AI mem coins and we were kind of like okay the odds of this being a show are very high but there was a small hope uh that we were going to make it in a way that or survived the the the week because we we like less than 24 hours before the Tok launch we we announced uh coinbase Ventures Bas ecosystem fund uh investment in town protocol also the market on that day was probably one of the best days this was like uh last Tuesday 29 November if I'm not uh yeah 29 of October sorry so it

was one of the the best days in terms of price action uh in the market and and you know positivity let's put it like that and uh yeah I mean we we we were also our position positioning as a base coin you know and Bas being a Powerhouse in in in crypto we had some hope that uh we would uh make it through the week those first 48 hours were kind of like a Mike Tyson punch in the face I mean put things in perspective this was again a walk in the park compared to surviving the bare Market 2022 was a you know that was hard you know the surviving death

was super hard for us especially we had to uh kind of like figure out our way after our first situation product situation completely failed and that that period in our life life was chaotic to say the least so if you put things in perspective it was just another Tuesday and Wednesday uh but yeah we we did take take a punch but we brought ourselves back you know yeah I mean we were expecting that let's keep building it's still day one nothing changes for us but then um after the farmers flushed out and looking in Insight I think one of the biggest mistakes of our team and my my biggest mist was somehow trying to follow follow

the what I call nowadays crypto Shenanigans Playbook that's not us we're Builders at Art that's not us I mean our background we look we came into crypto not because of crypto we came into crypto because of blockchain that it brings natively the that Tech brings natively the the infrastructure that we need to make data better you know that's why we came in and then we found out Krypto is like oh actually we can use Krypto as a great incentive to make data better and create new data points okay that's cool but the thing is the matter of fact is we didn't came in for for this show let's put it like this you know quote unquote having said that those 48 hours were tough you know as as prepared as you are it's tough and you

can really see who your friends are and who they they aren't and Farmers they aren't your friends uh but we kind of knew that but you never know until you know right and I think that needs to stop in the industry and it needs to start with the builders the founders we need to stop using those uh techniques I mean it's just doesn't make any sense from a business standpoint yeah it's interesting to hear you say that because there is such a dichotomy between the growth tactics within crypto in that using token incentives is a great way to grow we that Playbook has been repeated over and over again

it it is a fantastic way to bring users but are they sticker users and do they stick around and that is the hard part and you can get you can get caught sometimes if you don't create reasons for your users to hold your token and to stick around and in our case we could measure it as well because we have the town passport we have this thing called the Builder score which basically Aggregates like it's a score uh creates a score based on the aggregation of your credentials your onchain and some offchain credential like get up LinkedIn but also onchain credentials from everything you do everything from activity to building activities and we knew like people coming from for inst we did an airdrop sorry we did the

marketing campaign with coin list and most of the users coming from there their Builder score was quite low below the the average Builder score I mean now we have the data we know that I wish we I wish we knew this uh before nobody's fault I mean we we we we dream we build we we learn and we repeat you know like it's fine and I think my my purpose coming coming on on on the show you know not only to to to be with you and and learn from you but also to share with other Founders you know look this is what happened to us and if you could avoid it I mean obviously each project is its own you know has its own circumstances but if I can help by sharing sure I'm all um about sharing and helping other builders get better

well and also to share with with investors as well which you know for our audience everybody here is an investor and the thing that you really can take away from this is you know here's Pedro telling you guys that when you launch a token and we've seen this time and time again there's a lot of volatility post launch because you do not know what all the farmers are going to do and most projects whether you know it or not have a lot of people that are there for an incentive reason and they are they are difficult people to know how they're going to act and they might sell immediately afterwards and you might have a selloff that happens and look it's not Pedro you're not the only

project that this is happened it happens to every project most notably this summer with blast like Blast has really struggled after their tge to get back to the numbers that they had before their tge because the incentives went away and so that's a difficult thing now um I want to talk about the Builder score and tal protocol but before we get there I just want to talk a little bit more about the token launch and one thing that's been discussed recently a lot on Twitter is there's this conversation going around around the importance of getting on a tier one centralized exchange it is a big boost for any project once you're on listed on coinbase or you're listed on binance or

you're listed on Kraken these centralized exchanges are going to bring you a distribution to a massive audience that might be interested in buying your token participating in being a part of your token but there's a lot of people saying that the way in which you get on to these centralized exchanges is maybe not the best way that you have to a lot of people saying that you have to pay to get on to centralized exchanges and there's just a lot of misinformation I know you guys aren't on centralized exchanges right now but can you from behind the scenes can you tell us I mean you're working with coinbase and you have some sort of partnership with them what is required to get onto a centralized Exchange so it really varies uh from uh centralized from sex to sex

we did get into a couple of them Gates and Maxi we opted in to only get into the two that we felt the most positive vibes and the most straightforward ones we did pay uh some listing fees and in in I cannot reveal like the details but usually this type of exchanges they have a a combination of three things leising fee marting fee and the deposit that you can get back if certain conditions are met post token launch this vary a lot from place and by the way that they don't have they don't need to have the Tre in my opinion if you have to go with with listing like that it's better for you to just do the listing fee and be done with it and basically yeah so

that's the first thing I just wanted to put out there it's it's quite common practice uh for this industry based on my experience and it's just business in a way right I'll tell you what one thing Jay like when I came into started really going deeper with into tge I felt that the the centralized world was was kind of established right tier one tier two tier three it's not it's very fluid what is true today is not true tomorrow bance is number one today tomorrow their CEO gets arrested C coin is number whatever today tomorrow their Founders get arrested and I think the the system in a

way is is Flushing out the Bad actors so that's good the thing is and I was telling you before we we started recording is like I think this is a basket with a lot of apples and unfortunately a lot of them are kind of rotten or partially rotten and I wish there was more there were more that aren't now let's not confuse like proper even using the word proper is is tough but let's not confuse like more established brands for instance coin base they don't charge you a listing fee they may suggest you some uh marting uh uh campaigns I do I haven't gone like deep with them in those conversations yet at least and uh the thing

is it's okay if there's some marting costs we can debate those we can discuss those and maybe it makes sense for the project I think this is a business they have their business to run and they're bringing you uh uh customers trading customers they're bring you eventually users there's a big difference between the two by the way like in town like in our product the the the user is quite homogeneous it's a builder right in in in this new product that we launch which is token the the talent token the user is quite you know diverse you know like it's a more traded profile but there's many different types in here especially in the global self where Builders are also like traders in a way there's more

like intersection between the two so we're still learning how to deal and grow this new product this the token we look at the token as a product that we need to groom and grow I'm not sure if I answer your question but it comes with all the different types of flavors and yeah it's in many lisings fortunately it's a nasty business it's uh I think there's two types of of like my experience there's like uh uh three problems number one uh horrible business ethics in some situations number two it almost feels like I woke up in the morning and I I'm teleported straight to the bazaar and I'm like discussing uh whatever and them they do love those

tokens you know especially if they're are free and the number three I would say in some cases I think there's abuses in terms of um listing fees and and the percentage of Supply that uh these listings uh demand from projects like binance is known to do up to 15% uh uh five bits can be like uh 1 2% it really depends i' I've heard many different stories from from Founders unfortunately it's it is what it is I think people can complain they should there's Alternatives there's decentralized Alternatives and I'm very bullish on those so um that's actually our our strategy is to all in on base and

there's a lot of amazing base coins um more on the D5 front that we we can can work with and collaborate with so you don't need to do it uh I think in crypto in the crypto space we we kind of like we think we have it figured out but we don't and people who've been here the most they probably give the worst advice because they they're giving you advice based on their previous experiences and the market is changing it's getting more mature and um for people like me that I'm me I'm in the space I guess for the right reasons it plays in my favor in our favor because I mean we we just want to build cool Tech that helps fix a real real life problem you know real world

problem and so I think the market is turning in our favor and you just got to navigate this Waters and look if you want to work with some more shady partners that comes with some consequences or not I mean maybe you'll you'll make it whatever that is uh for for you let's let's talk about a Bas because you bring up this was a key decision for you guys was to decide to launch your token on bass why was Bass the obvious choice for you and then I want to go into the key for you is it's so interesting to see you you position or you think about the token as a product and what I know that you know

from conversations with you and your team is that you guys are really focused on making Talent a flagship Pro token a flagship project on base and I want to talk about how you guys are doing that but first why base so for us it was quite organic the the the the way we got to build on base uh we like they launch people think Bay is around for many years but they're not they launch it uh what 14 months ago it's crazy it over one year ago it's crazy the amount of growth they had so we launched on Bas so allow me to to tell you a short story so I think in our last convers ation this

didn't happen yet so last year on uh a bit before token 2049 in Singapore we went to e Singapore Eaton and by then we were still in our quote unquote around and find out face right we're still figuring out okay we know our mission we know our vision but we still don't know our product what it's going to be like this Vision we're still exploring so we use that Eaton to learn new tech like uh counstruction we also uh Ed that aaton to start building on base because we felt like that the the way they were creating it and it was they were using op stack which we also had Good Vibes with we just felt that it was the right uh move for us also in

terms of social fight was quite strong with forecaster being one of the flagship social F projects on uh on Bas and basically we decide okay let's let's build the project with on that aaton we ended up like absolutely sto stealing the show like we had the funny story I thought we won three Awards but I skipped the beginning of the ceremony award so at the end I asked my I was like super hey man we won three Awards to my co-founder Philip and he's like what are you talking about we won four so I even missed one award like okay we absolutely stole the show it felt really good we needed that after being through a bare Market we needed that boost of confidence as well and that was kind of like an organic kickoff to build on Bas

we W of the first like proper projects to build on Bas and if I may we're very unique project because who's building in ARR Tech and crypto not many people doing this intersection so we're very unique project so for them was like okay let's let's work out with these guys and you know what we've been learning tons from their team that's how I evaluate our partners how much we learn with them how how fun is it to build with them so it was very organic for us as Builders we just felt at home does it make any sense and we started dealing with them and just the relation ship started evolving and it's like you know what you know it's it's where we need to be and um they're also part of the super chain I mean there's amazing other amazing

projects and partners that we work with like worldcoin or cello that are joining or are part of super chain already so it's like a big family so he's not only Bas he's a super chain family as well so I feel like damn you know this is the right place for us you know now was it a bit of luck yeah sure but you make your own luck in in in know way right so so that's kind of the the the backstory to how B was very organic and everything just came into place after that I mean even the the investment it was like we we didn't ask it just came through like couple weeks before the TG and we're like can you guys make it fast because we don't want to launch the token without telling all the token holders

about this you know we want to keep everyone uh make sure everyone has the same information before the trading begins and um they they made it fast and just just happened it was so natural for us and the investment just just to be clear for our listeners the investment you're referring to is an investment from coinbase ventures in Talent protocol yeah through the the Bas ecosystem fund that they have multiple funds they use the Bas ecosystem one for us so it just it was kind of like one one thing after another and yeah the relationship keeps evolving and and improving we we say like we're we're talented and we're based you know um it I love it and obviously there's a unique

opportunity to be on bass because bass does not have its own token but a lot of people believe in bass ourselves included the Milkman loves bass he tells me all the time he feels like it's the most adult chain in the room so if there's no Bas token there is this question of like and we've we've talked about this in the show before of like okay I'm not gonna well I'll ask you that will there be a base token in a second but I'm not going to ask that first more so what I'm wondering is okay so if there's no base token how does an investor get take advantage of or get exposure to the base ecosystem without obviously you could go and you could buy coinbase stock sure okay you can go do that but on chain how do you do that and I think what I'm guessing is there's an

opportunity for you guys to position Talent as one of the leading tokens to invest in base and and how do you do that so you know first off not investment advice I hate to talk talk about prices like not sure if you believe me but I haven't looked at the talent price since last Friday we're recording this on Monday we launched the token uh not even a week ago I haven't checked the price yet it's looking pretty good man all right I I'll I'll take your word for it but honestly I'm saying this like price up price down those things I know will happen for sure we just keep building you know having said that there's two ways you can participate like there's actually three ways you can participate in the based economy you mentioned the fourth way which is by uh

uh coin stock okay that's the the the old school way but the other three ways like one is just you know do stuff on base like on Zora on forecaster just participate in the the economy be part of this new onchain economy that is is there's a lot of creativity going on it's to totally like super Freedom space and there's a lot of innovation going on like I mean AI agents where are they kicking off it's on Bas I mean you have ai memes on some but the AI agent like as in launch pads and stuff like that we we built our own it's called tmate and he's having fun on on forecaster you already made another talent agent sorry another AI agent friend and um he keeps helping people improve their Builder

score and look at their code and and stuff like that it's really cool the the things in terms of innovation what's happening is amazing so one thing is just be part of it have fun you know be part of it have fun learn the other thing I mean you can always do the meme play I'm not a meme guy myself I do have my meme bags but just more like for fun you know like uh I don't do it for a leaving and and I don't want to mention any of the ones that I hold the other thing um that you can do is invest in the what we call the base coins and that's uh aerod Drome um that's well Moro I believe BMX that's talent you know and by the way we have the best

sticker around Talent your ticker is very good it's an amazing ticker it's amazing ticker so it's like vitalic the ticker is if no the ticker is talent and that that says a lot anyway no Financial advice the other thing I wanted to mention since we talked about memes I can clearly see the like a battle in a way but like a a a competitive friendly battle between Bay and salana by the way you can be on both I have my salana bags okay so we can be obviously these not like pick that it's not like Trump or Aries you know that's not it's not the thing you can be on both it's fine and basically what I see that is just different vibes okay so I think like uh

Solan is more like cult and I do like Cults you know that they're cool I mean they religion you know look at like uh any religion sort of almost like a cult like culture come comes from the world Cults right so basically that they have it like they I see that behavior and this is amazing to to observe that in real time and also the their Foundation is very aggressive in terms of marketing very very aggressive I like that as well some people don't like it but I like it so they have something really cool going on but the thing with so is they had uh a sex behind them FTX that well we all know what happened they already have a token which is is doing quite well

apparently I haven't looked at the prices but I think so and they have a community and they are taking full advantage of memes now this is one side of the story the other side of the story is BAS and Bas on in the ethereum ecosystem is the the only place where where memes exist right but more importantly than that it's like is the only place where I I feel like the numbers tell that the number of Builders uh growth and this came from the Electric Capital report and also the a16z uh Builders report that was launched a couple week ago where it's the the the place where the most Builders are and if you go to b.org all of their communication is for Builders

they know that if the builders like to build on base then the rest will come and that's what I like about Bas and now to answer your question about the token the official answer is there will be no token there's no plans for a token but I know from my experience that plans just can't change plans do you mean the base token you're talking about the base token if there there's one one day I have no idea base official statement and and from M I know from the team there's no plans there won't be a token but I also know from my life experience that plants change I mean look at our token launch we changed plants we were going to launch our token in 2022 and we ended up launching in 2024 and that was good actually because we had no idea what we

were doing back then and we found our way so plans do change so I think there's a a b I know like be case bull case there's definitely a bull case for Bas having a token I would like to support Bas on chain with a a base token that's me personally pedal uh this is not a talent protocol statement it's a pedal statement me personally I would love to have base tokens the same way I have coin stock so I I just feel that those are two different things and we living in a world where the the world is getting tokenized especially the financial world right with real world assets uh leading the way so why not you know having a a token but that's my

opinion that's just my personal opinion I hope it happens I think there's a lot of people that think uh like me but we don't know anything other than there's no plan for a token to be launched and that's official statement and we're good with that and I'll keep building on Bas regardless it's very interesting to hear you talk about the Builder side of Bas and really the Bas ecosystem is so focused on Builders and how much how many resources and dollars they're putting into all these funds and these Grant programs and marketing programs and assisting their projects in terms of getting them out there and bringing more Builders and I know you guys have done

lots of Partnerships with coinbase Brian Armstrong was talking about getting his talent protocol Builder score right and he was posting that and sharing that that was a fun one because it's awesome to see it was another an app that was using our API and they they used the Builder score I mean to calculate someone's build skill building skills and then he shared that app but the Builder score was there like Talent protocol Builder score I think it was 66 or 67 whatever and Brian's main conclusion if you read the the follow-up tweet was like I need to keep building so it's interesting from all that the on score whatever the port that he got was like I need to keep I need to improve my

Builder score and I was like damn you know that's not product Market fit but we're getting close you know let's keep going you know so that was amazing yeah it's huge but the the the thing that's so interesting to me is the like for you as the CEO of of this project okay everybody's so interested in meme coins right now right that is where all the attention is and the reason that all the attention is there is because of a the speculative opportunity is massive because they can go from zero to 1,000x overnight they can go so fast and because they have no utility and they have no business behind them they are just pure speculation so for you you are

in this position as all the what I would call like you could call them altcoins you could call them utility coins these are real apps real businesses that are building on chain and also have a token you have this challenge of do you focus so marketing to builders and marketing for Builders to come and actually sign up for a talent passport and get their build their score and start to build their onchain identity in order to solve the problem that you're trying to solve within HR Tech or do you have to focus at the same time of this other product that you have in this other user base which is Traders and investors and convincing them that Talent is cool and talent is memeable and talent is part of their culture and they should buy and

hold talent that those are two very different things how do you how do you and your team think about where to put your resources and where to focus on okay very good question thank you for asking that we are all like builders in our team all right so we are fully aware of the market landscape and that a lot of Mind share is focused on on memes and the only thing I disagree with you is I think a meme can have utility in a way and we're seeing that with some AI agents that have a meme on their own so there's some like a rep AI utility also can have sentimental utility I want to have that Meme because I want to have that Meme we launched back in May a meme for Builders called build on base and

that was kind of like and we're still gonna develop that on the side on our own free time it's going to be like kind of a universal Builder income of sorts uh project so memes can also have some sort of utility well having said that we hope to see the token as a market reflection of the quality output of our work on Talent protocol that's the way we look at the how we build okay now yes it's a new product and we're learning from it our strategy is to go more on within the base ecosystem more on decentralized and then eventually if the stars in line man maybe a

coinbase I don't I'm not saying we will I'm not saying we are not saying we want okay just a possibility uh like many others okay we we we are Builders as we progress we learn we create create new information that allows us to build better and I think that's what's happening with the token we're learning as we go uh and the same with the protocol so clearly we have two products the protocol and the the token when it comes to the protocol we're still learning tons like I mean our API is being used uh by people all all over the world and they're using our data points to create like gated events we we never thought about gated events using the

Builder score to get an event but it kind of makes sense so so be it people are using it to create uh unclutched uh Landing apps using the Builder score so if you're a great Builder maybe you'll pay your your debt you know maybe all right so there's a lot of different things obviously most of them are still like IID say 80% of them are in the HR Spectrum but actually we were surprised that hold on a second yeah we're focused on the ARR technology vertical but any Market any segment any virtual that needs talent to operate it or that Services Talent they could use our data so we're actually making our data our our mode for the future

especially in a AI driven world I think uh if you have the data like you're better protected in a way you protect better your business your community so to answer your question we are learning we look at them as two products but definitely our focus is on the the the protocol product and looking at assuming that the Traders or Builder SL Traders whatever the the the the customer of the token product is looks at that as a reflection of the not only the quality of the output that we deliver but also how we do it we do it in a very based way very optimistic way a very open way a very talented way if you will and so

we hope that people see that and then I guess that's the reflection not only of the value but the potential you know I think you told me I didn't see it but if you told me the price action is is positive I guess people are seeing some potential in uh how we're building and what we're building now what I can tell you is just the AGR tax sector alone is a multi-billion dollar industry and it's growing 10% year on year it's crazy industry now this can be applied to any industry and our Dream this is well documented our dream is that one day J Paul comes on stage on the fed and instead of using the CRA crap jobs data that they use at the FED level they use

our data that is on chain is verified and it's realtime data to make better Economic Policy decision making obviously this is a dream but you know let me dream because I dream I build and I repeat I I love it po Pedro I will I will dream with you and with your team thank you so much for joining us today shout out shout out to you for um launching your token to your whole team I hope I hope the uh it's good that you're not looking at the price because you can manage your stress that way uh and to everybody listening in um none of this is financial advice as you guys know uh but feel free to check out Talent token on base that's ticker Talent uh or some of

the other tokens that we mentioned today we'll see if there is a Bo base coin in the future and if there is you can bet that activity on base will probably help you get more base coins so you might want to spend some time doing that as well Pedro thanks so much for joining us today thanks for having me again Jay awesome have a wicked awesome day everybody thanks for listening in as always if you liked today's episode please hit subscribe and make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on the next one there's also a link in the description to our free 5 minute daily newsletter where we simplify crypto for you while making you laugh and if you're willing to step up your crypto investing game we're going to also leave a link for milk Road Pro you get access to our

portfolio where you can see exactly what we are buying this is your number one resource to help you invest successfully in crypto one final note this show is for educational purposes only and nothing we say is financial advice investing in crypto or any asset is risky and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose thanks so much for listening in my friends have a wicked awesome day