What Is a Shitcoin? Learning Crypto with Amy

Okay, what the f is a shitcoin?! Amy chats with Ben Sunderland of Everscale and the Nevermind the Shitcoins podcast about... well... shitcoins 😂

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[00:00:00] Amy: Welcome back for another episode of learning crypto with Amy on the hacker noon. This episode is sponsored by Bybit, the cryptocurrency trading platform to take buying, selling, training, and earning crypto to the next level, visit Bybit. com to learn more and onto the episode on with my little learning progress of cryptocurrency.

I have a lot of questions still, even though we've done several episodes at this point, and one of my questions is how am I supposed to figure out how much a particular coin or a token might be worth? And so I thought we would just dive right into the deep of things and go right for the shoot call.

So I have Ben here today, who is the host of the nevermind the shit coins, a podcast, and part of the free ton team. So welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:05] Ben: Ah, thank you very much for having me Amy. Absolute pleasure. Yes.

[00:01:09] Amy: And of course, my name is Amy Tom, and this is the hacker noon podcast. So let's get into it. What the F is a shit coin.

[00:01:19] Ben: Oh, what a great question with, yes. So this is a, one of my favorite things. So. When we're leading straight into a shell for my own podcasts. When I was thinking about the name for the podcast, initially, I thought, nevermind, the blockchains it's a play on an old British quiz, which existed. I was a big fan of people.

It was a music based one. But then the term shitcoin people often think of it as a derogatory thing. But essentially all it means is anything that isn't Bitcoin. So if it's not Bitcoin, it's actually. Essentially. And that's the, that has the running beam. Lots of projects should wear it as a badge of honor, I think.

[00:01:55] Amy: Oh really? That is like the definition room, the shirt coin, just like not. Yeah.

[00:02:01] Ben: That's how I see it. Essentially. Some people might argue with me, but like I say, I think yeah, it's a batch that project should wear with honor.

[00:02:11] Amy: So let's talk about them, the evolution of the shit and coin. What was the first street club?

[00:02:15] Ben: You'd be going past my knowledge. Personally, I got really into the world in the crazy summer of 2017. So you can think of that as the birth of the ear or. But what people might think of common leadership going. So when the market really blew up, when coin market cap went past, having what, a couple of hundred decent projects, depending on your definition to literally going, in the space of a few months to thousands.

And I'm sure, as you said, you've mentioned, you've touched on things with Ethereum in previous episodes. I won't go too heavily into that. But obviously the ICO. Of 2017 where essentially anyone good launch their own ERC 20 token, they could list on ether Delta that the home of shit coins, wherever where I cut my teeth, as they say.

And yeah. For me, I think that's where it really started kicking off the ongoing markets they were around before. But again, that, with that summer with the big Bitcoin first original vocal I know to be in the original one, that the one. Yeah, kicked off the controversy with Bitcoin cash, Bitcoin core as they call it.

[00:03:24] Amy: Yeah. Okay. So what was it about the shitcoin that really sparked your interest? What particular one made you think. Okay,

[00:03:34] Ben: You're going to make me embarrass myself here. So again, every one was new once. Okay. I'm going to frame this. Every everyone was new once, I'm a long head here.

B I'm an idealist. There, there was a project should I name names? Of course shame. These people they were called substratum and like I say, I discovered ether Delta, which essentially was. It's a little bit like a very Devolt version of uni swap. There was a micro, centralized processing getting listed, but there was no gatekeepers, essentially, you could create your own token.

You could list with any promises, just a website. And because it was such a speculative market with idiots like me going, Ooh, promises, and it works, there's a British thing about throwing a dart board. Some of it sticks. So anyway substratum they had a very flashy website and promises of being able to get this, bringing down the great firewall of China.

Okay. I bought in Siri, so I bought into it. So I asked him

[00:04:36] Amy: and I just finally going to open up it's 2017. Let's go.

[00:04:40] Ben: Yeah. These guys have made a copy and paste token. How can it fail? It was crazy plans. But the further you dug into it. So, it was crazy times because like I say, I must have bought these coins at fractions of a penny, something like that, whatever they were.

Yeah. We were trading in Ethereum. So maybe those pennies were thousands now, but it's, again, he's getting into the complexities of trading shitcoin center, frame, everything. I'm not a financial advisor or a very good trader. Yeah.

[00:05:08] Amy: So here comes my first dumb question. So back in the day, in like the 2017 times, was it just like a crazy wild time where like anybody could make a token, but now it's not.

[00:05:22] Ben: No, of course it's the same nowadays, but I think the processes and the general protection around people. So generally it's a lot harder to get any form of attention or any form of speculation on uni swap than it would have been on ether, Delta per se. It's essentially that the amount of fish in the pond nowadays, that the bigger, more decent fish are always going to be able to.

That's a terrible analogy. I'm sure. I'm sure I could come up with a better one later, but

[00:05:53] Amy: the fish eat the little fish and then that's how the circle of life.

[00:05:57] Ben: Exactly. Exactly. But know. So again, you have these genuine projects, but that's not to say, things like pancakes, swapping uni swap. It is very easy to list it open.

In fact, they're all decentralized processes. Ever scale in which I should say is the new name for freedom. There's you know, decentralized exchanges you can use as well. And I made a token very quickly for nevermind the shit coins, no idea what I'm going to do with it. Hopefully I'll find some sort of fun quirky use.

But yeah, going back to the 2017 thing, just as an example. So substratum, you do a little bit of homework once you realize that. Okay. Maybe they're not they're geniuses, this website proclaimed them today. The guy was wanted in more states than Billy the kid, I think basically.

Criminal just some of the worst things you can think. And yeah, th this fraction of the penny token went to $3 a piece at its peak. So you're talking like three, 4000% return on investment now. And it was a multi, multi-million dollar. I look crap, basically. So, yes. Shit going can be a badge of honor.

As in anything that's not Bitcoin as a ship going. I think when people are slender Asley using the term, this is the type of projects that are going on about,

[00:07:11] Amy: this is what I think of when I think

[00:07:13] Ben: of a shit coin. Yeah. I've got thousands more of these stories, if you want one. Just off the top of my head titty coin, which is sorry, I hope.

Not safe for work or some, but a time shares in a topless island, of course, timeshares. And ICO's what could be better.

[00:07:30] Amy: I obviously I'm going to buy a token for that. Of

[00:07:32] Ben: course, of course. A God piety was one of my personal favorites. So Def basically stamping on any form of blasphemy you could ever imagine buy more of their token and get better digs in.

That pitch. We're not going to say you can't get into heaven if you don't have a going, but, you're only going to get some sort of meal. You're not gonna get a sea view. That kind of thing.

[00:07:57] Amy: When people are making these coins, basically what they're doing is offering some kind of value in exchange for you to buy into their coin.

Right. And that value could be. Apparently it literally

[00:08:10] Ben: anything. Yeah. So to try and pretend to be serious for a minute, which isn't my forte in case your comes up that you can break things down a little bit. Can't you? So I'd like to think that you have coins, which are Bitcoin, Ethereum ever for ever scale.

So coins are the. The heart of the network itself. So a layer one solution, then you have tokens essentially. So anything which runs on top of another network, you can loosely categorize as a token as opposed to a coin. So when you then break down tokens, which is where we're getting into here, you have.

Utility tokens. And you have securities essentially. And again, I'm going to say this about 10 times. I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not a lawyer. I'm a very silly man. But yes, you have security offerings and you have utility. You can think of utility tokens as in gain points, a Tesco Clubcard points are a good example but Tesco club points, which you own, which you can swap and send around security offerings are a lot more Roosevelt and that's.

Legal suing them, throwing around them and at the minute, but essentially you get into areas of the Howey test where anything, which is promising, you returns on investment. It isn't inherently something you use to do something, but it's an investment or. It's promising speculative returns is a security.

And again, so these are your two basic shades of token. I would say then there may be some sort of new ones.

[00:09:49] Amy: Okay. Yeah. So what like utility tokens then, and the offering that they provide? The wildest value prop that you have come across.

[00:10:01] Ben: Oh gosh let me just scratch my, there's some absolutely insane ones earth.

Here's a very recent one. Oh my tongue stinking. Can you get me my tungsten cube? So, I dunno you big on crypto. That's all that you were a Twitter user. Oh, okay. I love crypto Twitter. I don't really like social media is a big thing, but hacker noon and crypto Twitter and white spaces there was a very long weird meme culture over there which sells eat.

And crypto investors became obsessed. So Stan cubes. So, I, here we go. It's my little bit I only have a very tiny one. This is a one centimeter tungsten cube but there is a 14 inch or out there which has been tokenized. And I suppose the utility behind this and we're blurring into NFTs, but I won't complicate things.

Access to this 14 inch tungsten cube. So you can have, non-con sorry, I'll get this cause this right. I said it this really well on another show. The other day, non-custodial access to a 14 inch tungsten cube. One, 365th ownership, state, strange world. And I'll get, I'll play a little game with you here.

Amy, how much would you pay for one, 365th of a non-kin stove deal, access token to a 14 inch stinky. Again, don't get me wrong. My little one centimeter one. Isn't this satisfying. I've got a lot of love for this.

[00:11:29] Amy: A hundred

[00:11:30] Ben: dollars. A hundred dollars. Oh, I'm sorry. You've been severely outbid quarter of a million dollars.

[00:11:39] Amy: That's not even.

[00:11:42] Ben: Yes. You get a one day a year, which you can be pre obligated where you get to be in a room supervised. Of course, just in case you're a weird, I've

supervised with this 14 inch tungsten cube. But yeah, main culture side, they are quite satisfying things to hold it. It's very dense. So it's a lot heavier than you'd expect this tiny little things.

[00:12:03] Amy: All right. Okay. Okay. I'm getting into the mandate of a million dollars. Yeah,

[00:12:09] Ben: all for 30 pounds, you can give yourself a taste, the more blue collar version.

[00:12:16] Amy: Interesting. Okay. That's a

[00:12:18] Ben: wild. Yeah. And I this isn't even going back. This is a very recent thing this,

[00:12:22] Amy: so, so what, like what really gives it the value then? Like how do you know that your return on investment is going to come when you go into shit?

[00:12:33] Ben: They is where I think a lot of people are it's a complicated thing and that there's old sayings isn't there never invest what you can't afford to lose.

Essentially. Some of the most boring, most sensible sounding, promising projects have turned out to be the biggest piles of shit. Yeah. Personally, one of the coins I have. A bit of a bugbear for, and I might lose some fans, not that have any actual fans at the minute. It's a ripple, it's in the top 10 project, it's got the respect.

It is. As far as I'm aware, it's a private conglomerates copy paste chain of another project with no real value, no real utility massive promises of return on investment. This is, yeah, this is why you have to do your own research. And I don't know, fortune favors, the brave you have to, you do have to be in it to win it as they say.

Again, like if they're in Bitcoin, as I'm sure you've touched on, when you go back even two, three years, these were risky investments, perhaps that risk to reward ratio with these bigger cap coins, like essays. Maybe curving off, maybe it's becoming more, as institutions are waking up to the actual, real use of Bitcoin and such.

But like I say, personally, say my heart and my day job is with ever scale in terms of what we're doing, we are tech focused. There's marketing there's community. There's open access to information. There's not a, there's minimal censorship over, opinions and outgrow and this kind of thing.

And for me, these are all going to be. Good. Good indicators. I look for those as a guy who kind of works in community and that side of things, right? And one, one big red flag is, very heavy levels of sensors chip, or, when you immediately walk into a telegram group and people get banned for asking questions, which aren't allowed to be asked, these kinds of things.

Yeah, have perhaps then also the technical analysis answers other people might give you, but I don't look at charts all day. I look at people and I watch how you use. And I know I'm a big believer in people. So open. Exactly and yeah see, a lot of people are pseudo anonymous in the space and do very good things personally, just, coming from my opinion, I do generally tend to look for teams who were involved in projects with open public profiles.

Yeah. That's always a good, the accountability. If people aren't proud of what they do. That kind of raises questions in itself. I think maybe

[00:15:11] Amy: a hard criminal record.

[00:15:16] Ben: Yeah. Maybe I got a little bit burnt by that one. Yeah. I learned from your mistakes. That's the best thing. And again, that's a good thing.

You've got to make mistakes to learn. Hey. Any kind of thing, you don't learn how to ride a bike until you fall off and cut unique. Really? That's another terrible analogy I'm going to, I'm going to stick with it.

[00:15:35] Amy: And I feel like this is an age old question when it comes to shit coins, even though I don't know anything about this, but I know that people ask this question, is it possible to get rich from shitcoin.

[00:15:48] Ben: Yes. So of course, you have to, there's a thousand million anecdotal evidence is out there and. Yeah, I'll be more, more candid with man say yes, definitely. I've spoke to several people with the I've been at a conference event and like I say, I tend to work in community and people areas. Mostly I get a lot of job offers and people asking for recruitment requests for entry-level positions basically.

And this is the only industry in the world where, you can hire an intern. Three months later, there'll be a millionaire starting their own project. And then they see it. They see is a very common problem in the industry. People start in the entry level and entry level is just, he's not gone.

So like I say, in terms of just very basic entry level jobs, there is a massive need, which interesting make of that, what you will, like I say, I don't do advice, but

[00:16:45] Amy: these people have, what do they do?

[00:16:47] Ben: That's a good thing. Yeah. Like I say, when I after I realized maybe I wasn't the greatest trader in the world and substratum study crashing and burning and 2018 hangover kicked in for everyone bear market PTSD week, all this I was fortunate enough to start working in community management and yeah.

What do I do? I have a scale, essentially what I do is everything I want to do. It's an active community thing. I write, I, I talk, I have no real kind of coding or technical knowledge, but. Again, this is a new emerging industry with it needs people from all walks of life. Before I got into this, I was a grumpy head chef type person who hit away in kitchens and shouted at wasting stuff a lot.

That's what you believe it. Yeah. I had no financial background. Yeah. I'm not one of those guys who's going to say, yeah, I've never had 10 Bitcoin. I was a little bit late to the Bitcoin party to be saying I'm a millionaire or anything like that. But yeah, I value my kind of worth in terms of time and loving what you do.

And quite frankly, like I get up, I start working, I go to bed, right. As soon as I finished and it's not working, it's an industry which is doing things and shit going Bitcoin, everything in between coin, you know that there are Cowboys and there are good people. Incredible things which are changing the world.

Right. Sorry. I'm getting all passionate. The homeowner getting old serials, getting all serious. Sorry. Reaching and reaching.

[00:18:26] Amy: Okay. Yeah. That's super interesting. Th our shit coins, then a get rich, quick scheme.

[00:18:32] Ben: No. And just know you have to know what you're doing too. They can be again. So anecdotal I have a friend who's a very good programmer, he's a bit old school in what he does, and I've been trying to persuade him to dabble in cryptocurrency.

A couple of years now in January, February time, he finally said, Ben, you finally convinced me and what he'd done. He bought doge coin thinking. He would piss me off as a joke. He was like, I'm going to find the silliest cryptocurrency I can find. And it was pretty much only bought. He was like, yeah.

Right. And again, for all the jokes with the doge coin is a meme essentially. It does what it says on the tin. You can send it back and forth. It's safe, it's secure, blah, blah, blah. And then Elon Musk comes along with his Elon Musk menace and Dave is laughing hard. But for many weeks they do, but it's 60% look, 40% skill, 20% staying up til three o'clock in the morning and bring what the fuck life is.

Sorry.

[00:19:42] Amy: Okay, cool. Yeah, let's talk about doge coin bet.

[00:19:46] Ben: I'm not a massive expert on doge, but he does make me laugh.

[00:19:49] Amy: It's a good community. Arguably one of the most popular shit coins. And what is, so what is their value prop like literally actually offering?

[00:19:58] Ben: So I'm a little bit, so again, here's where my definition of Bitcoin to shit going comes in and I'm going to try and get a little bit technical here to the best of my abilities.

Bitcoin is a UTX. Blockchain. So what that means in layman's terms is you can send it to one person. They can send it back. It will not do anything else with any degree of efficiency, because it is designed to do one thing very well and very securely. So the worlds has Bitcoin pretty much has the biggest open source army of developers.

You can imagine. Anything else, which purely just does peer to peer payments is almost superfluous in a way, in my opinion. And that's what I that's just an opinion. So again, I'm not up to date with the latest developments on dojo. Elan's a very clever man, so I'm sure he gets excited about some things, perhaps he's just another day photo taking the picture.

I know whoever his Ben is out there. They've Saturday night, wife jokes were pretty much on par with what I did with my stand-ups because it's so, yeah. I can't comment too heavenly. I know the community does a lot of good charitable work, a lot of charities except doge going, the world needs alternative markets, I so, these are, these things are a force for good and as long as they stay that way, but. In a longterm strategic water. Where is this space going? I can't see why personally, unless Bitcoin is suffering for some sort of network congestion, which again, there are people who work on this every day in, day out that why would you be looking for a faster, cheaper Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is fast and cheap. Yeah.

[00:21:42] Amy: Oh, because there's a dog. Where's the bank point dog.

[00:21:46] Ben: Ah, yeah, of course. Who am I? I'm being way too serious. I need another drain cuffing.

[00:21:53] Amy: Okay. So someone as someone who is how has one foot in and one foot out of the crypto space? The doge like movement sees this seems to be like a huge thing and not just like doge coin, but like baby doge and mommy doge.

And daddy does, like, all of the different doses are also like piggybacking off of the success of doge coin, then.

[00:22:15] Ben: That's what happens. Think about it, not as a cryptocurrency, but as a successful brand of sports ship, if Nike does a very successful brand or design of sports shoe, all of a sudden, that you follow down the chain of imitators, don't you.

Yeah. If I don't know, what's a crappy sports brand, high tech or something. I count that all of my clothes, a non-brand and terrible. So I thought, I don't know this world. But yeah it's very similar that, successful things will always get imitators. It's innovators will always be copied that's the nature of open source, and I can, yeah. Getting into big topics stuff here, but ownership rights in an age of digitalization is a big, how would you claim you are the one that. Owns the vision of the meme and you get into Craig road, territory there on, he sending people to court for everything left right. And center.

[00:23:13] Amy: Yeah. I am like also, especially interested in the ship because that is one of the more popular ones too, right. That has just taken off.

[00:23:23] Ben: Yeah. So, I don't know a huge amount about Sheba. It's pretty much a dope doge Corrine thing. Again the marketing guys are very good. They've raised a lot of awareness.

Just anecdotally, there was a question on my show about them the other day. There was a guy who bought it was in August, 2008. And he bought roughly 12 and a half percent of the total supply of ship token for, I think it was in the region of $7,000. Okay. It's was the other week valued at, I might be mixing my figures, but $5.9 billion ate it and he hadn't sold or moved a single.

It is literally as far as I'm aware and again, and I fact check those folks for your own good, but the greatest single trade of all time ever is in $7,000 to 5.9 billion. Yeah. You're getting a lot of fingers on toes out to

[00:24:23] Amy: count all of it to wow.

[00:24:26] Ben: What you. So it's huge amounts. And again, they've got a lot of charitable work going on, so yeah, if it's a force for good, but yeah.

Do your own research on these things, guys, I would always be wary of jumping onto bandwagons, for me, my most successful. Yeah. Now trading experiences have been where I've found a project early essentially a team who have a good vision, a good plan. Maybe there's a unique aspect to it. And these are the kinds of.

50 50 shots, if you will, these things are either going to take off or they're not. When I first got into it in 2017, know, I was playing around with very small amounts of money, throwing it, scatter gun approach. And here I am five years later still milking it.

[00:25:13] Amy: Okay. Okay. Would you say that a shitcoin has to have a certain level of silliness to it to be successful?

[00:25:23] Ben: Ah, that's a good question. No, definitely not. Like I say, Ethereum is a shit going through and through my new actually Vitalic is a very silly man. So perhaps you're right. I was going to go into car Danno channels. Hoskins is a very silly man as well. Isn't he accountable

[00:25:42] Amy: as well as different than people.

A little bit insane.

[00:25:46] Ben: Yeah, you bleeding me into say I was away at the Malter conference this week and yes, basically, even if we're not insane, I think that there's a bit of, there must be 1,001 beautiful quotes about madness. And it's all about the way you see the world. And I think. Essentially two types of people who were involved in this space.

You have dreamers now in long-haired hippies who were like, wow, this thing could make a beautiful difference. It could do something. And of course you have speculators and entrepreneurs and one can't really thrive without the other, he's. That parasitic symbiotic relationship, if you will,

[00:26:22] Amy: Entrepreneurs.

[00:26:24] Ben: Oh, may, maybe it's us hippies who were the parasites really? It's those entrepreneurs who are making the money so that we can go giving it away to people or, good causes or building things, which then don't make any money, but just do good things in the world. And so, yeah, there's a lot of ways of looking at.

Nah. I like to say, obviously I come from the first camp, I tried to do a couple of courses on technical analysis and properly fell asleep halfway through, it's fun fundamentals for me. If you like what the project's doing, think about it. Like you're investing in. Again, decentralization is maybe a overused as a buzzword.

It's a new way of doing something that's already been, companies exist. They're just very few and that it's in closed a decision circle controlled and round by very few. But again, you look at boards of directors and CEOs and public listed company. Decentralization and defined by extension. It expands all these opportunities out to whether you've got $50, 500, 5,000, co in a world where code is law.

It's opportunity.

[00:27:34] Amy: Yeah. No. Okay. So let's talk about shit coins for good then what are some of the projects that have really brought around like real societal

[00:27:43] Ben: change? Right. Wow. Here we go. I think my my employers at Dunlap's would kill me if I didn't go into this one ever scale.

So when I first started coming on board with these guys, we were running a contest. How all our tokens are distributed. know, There's no ICO world sale or anything like that. Everyone has to come and earn the tokens or buy them on the secondary market. Of course. But yeah, there was a contest to rebuttal a paper by MIT which basically says blockchain voting from bad to worse.

And it's like I say that the whole subject of this paper from Massachusetts institutional technology. Sorry, MIT. I'm sure. You know which one, I yeah, exactly. But to my English learning, it makes no sense. But yes there, their paper slides is any sort of principle that blockchain would be a force for good in the world of voting and elections.

And obviously in 2020 with the mess in the U S and yeah, I'm not going to talk politics because I say I'm a very silly man. And we run this contest and there were some excellent entries, but out of all these excellent entries, there was one in particular, a which like say I'd just come a bore down was fortunate enough to get involved in the jury panel decision for this.

And yeah, I've read it two, three times where I went, wow, this is a viable real world solution. And so this was then applied to. Throw it to say so ever scale. We are very close and we work closely with the government blockchain association. So again, whilst anarchy and decentralization, decentralized, everything is a beautiful vision, w we're not going to bring down capitalism overnight.

We need to all work in tandem and find a happy middle ground, I think. But yes, so Guatemala is a country of 3 million people, roughly. I think if I've got. Correct. Ever scale will be used to audit the entire national election in 2023 and ensure blockchain. So again, people will not be directly the vote will be done in standard procedures, but it will also be done doubled, backed up audit.

Exclusively and directly on blockchain. So open blockchain that you can see it all on the exploring real time. But yes, the, this paper which came forward, basically brought ban a way to ensure that because it matters of voting anonymity is important. If I want to vote for the asshole in the election that makes me an asshole, that's my choice and that's what democracy is about.

So, there's quite a lot of nuance to this, but like I say, 20, 23 will be a live real thing. Like I said, do your own research on this because like I say, I'm involved in a lot of things on ever scale and the technical details are a little bit above my direct field of understanding. But yes, like I say, it's.

Yeah, it's blockchain being used for a real genuine verifiable force for good in the world.

[00:30:27] Amy: Is there a coin?

[00:30:28] Ben: Yeah. Ever scale is say so if they're in like Bitcoin where a decentralized network entity thing in the world, you can buy them on the secondary market. Lots of good centralized exchanges.

We have a bunch of decks, obviously. Like I've just said the main thing is we have a meritocracy system. So generally there are contests running where people with skills, whether you call what I do a skill, but definably, they think I'm bringing something to the table. So, yeah, that, that's how it all kind of works.

Directly. I worked for a company who work on the chain and there were lots of companies that work on the chain, but ever scale is. Where we are, what you might call in the shitcoin world and micro camp right now. But again, just to be a dirty shell with. Hopefully microcap won't apply for too much longer, but that's not financial advice again, guys.

That's it. That's my passion. I, what I do in my day

[00:31:20] Amy: job. Yeah. Okay. Wait, let me wrap my head around this again, because Bitcoin newbie over here. Don't blockchain, maybe everything. So as you, if I were to invest in the ever. Sorry,

[00:31:37] Ben: if a scale is the name of the blockchain. So again, it's quite literally because it's a very scalable, yes.

[00:31:44] Amy: Okay. So if I were to invest in the ever scale token, then I'm basically buying into. Things that you're doing on the blockchain. And that's like the value that,

[00:31:57] Ben: so again, there are lots of other subtle details you can throw in there. So there's very good staking features. So again, everyone out there, we don't want coins, which just sit all easily and don't earn interest, but that's, that's the evolution of the space.

So they staking DFR. There's NFT platforms. Like I say, going back to my kind of loose definition of things ever, which is our coin is a coin because it is the heart, the fuel of the network, my token, nevermind the shit coins token, which, I have all of them. They're just, it's just a stupid thing I did on a one afternoon with a few clicks of a button.

But that is just a token, which runs on the ever blockchain ever scaled. Yeah, but like I say, there are hundreds, if not thousands of various different people building and trying to make use of this new technique. Which I won't go into the shell side of things, but like I said, do your own research if you're looking for a micro cap.

[00:32:55] Amy: Ah, I see. So like in the same way that you would have been promised that the China firewall is going to be taken down and that's the value prop of Evercare is that you have just like things that you're doing on the blockchain.

[00:33:12] Ben: Yeah. So, one of the things I would definably say ease ever scale is, again, it's not a utility token.

It's not a security offering is a coin. So like I say, no one owns the network. It is something which is maintained and ran by the developers. Yeah. I'm giving you a glossary terms. But yeah, so again, there's no promise of return on it. They were all just people working and building things you can do with this much like Ethereum, Ethereum goes as, and we all, we've all seen where a theory has gone.

When I first got involved, it was about $50 a base, I think. So we

[00:33:46] Amy: haven't all seen where a theory it was gone.

[00:33:49] Ben: Okay. Sorry. I apologize. But yeah, if you go back to. Four years ago. If there was like two to $2 a piece at the beginning of 2017, my math may be a little bit off there. When I started paying more attention to these things, if there it was 70, $80 each at a.

Most and want me on about four and a half thousand dollars each of the room today. And again, with this kind of older technology, which requires a lot more kind of maintenance in that way, The ever scale is a much younger beast designed on lessons learned from the past. So yeah, there are a lot of, yeah, a lot of different nuances to these things out there.

I think again, the best advice I would give any shit going, hunter is always do your own research and, know what type of, kind of project or thing you're aiming for. If you're going for fundamentals that like. All right.

[00:34:45] Amy: Cool. Cool. Final answer. What is your favorite? Shitcoin

[00:34:52] Ben: oh, okay. I'm going to add a little bracket to that.

I'm going to assume that you said I'm not allowed to say ever because that's my day job that would be achieving. And so we're not, or you are testing me there. I'll tell you favorite favorites are hardware because I suppose. It's a it's you can put it into a lot of different ones. It's a very silly one, but I have a lot of a love, hate, beautiful admiration for pancake swap eats a token, which runs.

Yeah. This is a token which runs on Binance smart Jane, which arguably isn't a natural blockchain. It's not very decentralized, but again, I won't go into those details. But yes this pancake token, it was one of the first. Seemingly sustainable major D five platforms, which was quite easy to use and accessible for people like me, who tend to steer away from anything too.

Technically imposing you go onto the website. Everything is pictures of rabbits with pancakes on their head and. In this world, this is a serious financial project. And I don't know the recent figures, but I think you're in the region of about $15 billion of locked liquidity on that website with very happy bunny, rabbits like me, who you in when it was new, again, very new.

And I thought I'm not, I'm just playing around. I'll find out how it works. If it's silly, I'm having fun. If. Yeah. I'm not going to lose any sleep, which is how I approach all these kinds of things. Yeah. But yeah, pancake has been very good to me, even though I've been going,

it's exciting because it's so silly that you're like how now. That is a pancake on rabbits aids, but yeah, it's working. The pain out and oh, God, yeah, that number went up quick and again, yeah, you've got to be in it to win it. You've got to be lucky. Right. I said, 60% look, 40% skill, maybe 80 20 on that.

So, there was a lot of luck involved, but yeah, it's a lot of fun and you've got to approach it with a sense of humor, I think, which leads me very nicely. Which leads me very nicely into a quick shell for my own show. Amy, when are you going to come on my show

[00:37:13] Amy: on your show? When.

[00:37:14] Ben: You can either come on this coming Thursday or the Thursday after on this series.

[00:37:19] Amy: All

[00:37:19] Ben: right. I will send you a calendar link. I won't make you answer here in now. But yes, so basically my show, say leading into that, you've got our fun if you like your British sense of humor what I've done, it's a podcast and a live YouTube show. It's a British panel, pub quiz kind of thing.

So we just play some silly games basically, but it's all based around the world of cryptocurrency. It's quite nice and entry level. So we play games like so I did my first live performance version of it. It's a, the conference in multi-day. We played a game called eight out of 10 crypto kitties, which was all about cool facts and statistics from the world.

So I did have a question to ask. Yeah, I just took an example there, go, I'm going to put you on the spot, Amy. Don't get me wrong. What I do very well is find the very obscure wacky things. So even people who think they know everything about this world, Come on then they're like, no, it wasn't fair. It's pure beginners.

A couple of shows ago someone finished the show with 28 million points. I think it's ridiculous. The points don't matter. We just have fun. I know I get drunk for a living, so, but yeah. What percentage of Australians believe Elon Musk invented Bitcoin. Wow. What percentage do you think? How high or low?

[00:38:37] Amy: Wow. I'm going to say 67.

[00:38:40] Ben: Oh, have you been doing homework? 56. So yes, but incredibly. Yeah. Yeah. And I hate to break it. If you have an, a big Australian audience out in hacker noon, he did an, I don't think anyway on it I'm 99%. Sure. It wasn't him. Yeah. He's quite a boastful guy. He would've probably would have admitted it by

[00:38:58] Amy: now.

6%. Okay.

[00:39:01] Ben: But yeah, we also get a lot ruder. So we play as some quite rude adult games where we a bit wordplay with some dirty going to have a sex poems mixed with crypto terms. So you learn a crypto term and you learn something that you can't get out of your head at night. Cause it's weird.

[00:39:16] Amy: The British sector funds.

I feel like that a lot of that would go over my.

[00:39:19] Ben: I know you're good friends with, at service Corps. So he's been on the show a couple of times and God bless him. Yeah, he is. I think it was him who was quoted as saying I learned something today. I really wish I didn't. Yeah. If that doesn't mean you want to listen to my show, nothing will.

And I don't want you to anyway.

[00:39:39] Amy: Excellent. Yes. And I was going to say that, I think this is so exciting because it really does shake up this like traditional ness and the stiffness of finance and like what we know about finance. And now we're just like investing in pancake bunny is, and it's just going to be the best time.

Yeah,

[00:39:58] Ben: exactly. It's touching into a different area, which isn't Mike on of, subject matter expertise, but defy, someone asked me at the conference, there were a couple of people did. Why defy? Defy is exactly it's very parallel to the banking system, except banks have the power of the government and the law behind them and can treat you like shit.

They don't have to offer you. Define products also need your liquidity like a bank. Do you know if everyone took their money out of the bank tomorrow, the bank would be like, oh, please come back. That's how a defined project works. Except, they know us as users, we have choice. And so they have to treat you well by default.

And that's where's people are often like, how can these, magical internet money sites offer me 200% APY or they knew that they need to attract customers and. I need to treat them wealth.

[00:40:50] Amy: Yeah. It's almost like there are rules in banking that make it so that it's possible to treat people like not human beings.

And if takes all that.

[00:41:01] Ben: Exactly. It's a brave new world to quote oldest hooks, wait y'all was like to,

[00:41:07] Amy: I love it. I'm getting into it. I'm doing it. Yeah. Crypto.

[00:41:12] Ben: Yeah. I think I hope you've learned something

[00:41:15] Amy: today. Amen. A lot today. Thanks Ben. If we want to find you and what you're working on online, where can.

[00:41:22] Ben: Nevermind the shit coins.com and ever scale.net or know, just find me I'm out there on the internet in lots of places. I'm very friendly. I don't bite usually. So just say hello. Yeah. Okay,

[00:41:35] Amy: great. Thank you very much. You like. Episode of the hacker noon podcast, you can get us at hacker noon on all of the social channels and LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, DM us comment.

I am here for you and I'm behind the screen. And if you like this episode, please share it like it, subscribe to the podcast and maybe shoot me over a little review. That would be excellent. And as always stay with. And I'll see you on the

[00:42:10] Ben: internet. I am so stealing your own tribe. I'm terrible at asking people to review and subscribe.

I'm too British. I asked them to do it. That was perfect. I'm so jealous.