Helios Horizons Ep.8 - Driving Community Creativity in Web3 with Seb Moriarty

Lukas Seel: 0:01

Hello everyone, this is Helios Horizons, Episode 8. I'm very excited to welcome Seb, the head of growth of PhaseLab, the CMO of Netrunner Tax and the main reason that we're here today, and I think of you know the people that I haven't met in real life. Probably one of the people I'm looking forward to the most sometime meeting meeting him sometime in the near future. He is the infamous Gremlin DJ from the New York City NFT convention. He's been a long-time presence in this space and now he's hosting one of the most exciting events that I've seen come out of a DAO in the more recent future, which is the Bonkathon. So thank you so much for being here, Seb.

Seb Moriarty: 1:00

Dude, thank you so much for that amazing intro. It really puts into perspective the last three or so years being in this space. It's flown by and to kind of have done all the things that we've done and also known each other for so long by being in the Moustache DAO. I have to give a shout out to the Moustache DAO there. Yeah, I'm surprised we have not met and hung out, but I know when we do it's going to be absolutely legendary. So again, thank you so much for having me and looking forward to diving deeper into all of these different aspects today.

Lukas Seel: 1:32

Yeah, it's such an interesting thing and maybe we'll talk about that pretty like at the beginning here also this sort of online community versus the IRL community, all of these events and all of these different micro, macro, whatever communities that come together for these events. But first I want to reveal that we just listened to a track that you actually made and maybe give you a chance to kind of talk about your DJ past and your past before you even got into Web3 and take us on the journey with you on how you ended up in Web3.

Seb Moriarty: 2:10

I mean thanks again for playing that. It's probably one of my favorite tracks that I've made it's a little bit more on the simpler side, but it's got a good groove. It definitely bangs in a club. But yeah, I mean essentially I'll keep it as short as possible because my time before Web3 was like quite everywhere. So you know, I've been producing and DJing since I was about 16. I'm 29 now, so it's been a good amount of time.

Seb Moriarty: 2:32

And you know, originally you know throwing events, you know club gigs and things like that, and DJing in Cape Town, south Africa, where I'm from, but, and you know, that was just something that I did for years which was really a passion of mine, was probably my biggest passion was events and DJing. But essentially, you know, got a degree in marketing and advertising in Cape Town. Uh, you know, majored in brand management and digital media marketing, and basically from there did the events, the music. I worked in the film industry, behind and in front of the camera, acting in commercials, working on set design, doing video editing for casting studios and things like Probably. robably the most notable companies I've worked for was like Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola. I did a commercial for them two years ago. And then, also, you know, running my own company with a friend of mine. We did this company called Window, which was essentially like branded materials light boxes for bars and clubs and things like that bar mats. We also then repurposed them into actual desk pads or like these custom mouse pads which we were selling during the pandemic as a way to kind of have like a clean workspace, and we did a few, you know, branded ones for different companies in Cape Town.

Seb Moriarty: 3:41

So, yeah, I kind of, you know, definitely dipped my toes into a lot of different industries and areas before getting into Web3. And, so, yeah, I kind of, you know, definitely dipped my toes into a lot of different industries and areas before getting into Web3 and Window was the last thing I did before getting into Wed3. Where you know, over the last two and a half or three years, I worked for a number of different projects built a company last year called Seeds we did pre-sales for for a year, which was great.

Seb Moriarty: 4:00

I obviously helped found Phase Labs in 2022 with the rest of my amazing team members, which has been a blessing, and then, more recently, Radiants, which was birthed out of Phase Labs, which is really kind of Kimo Sabe's baby. He really drove that and pushed that entire initiative forward. So yeah, essentially Phase Labs and Radiants are connected by the team and then, just for context, NetRunner is a product under Phase Labs. So all three of those things in my bio they all connect intrinsically with one another.

Lukas Seel: 4:35

Yeah, I think that's such a cool thing too, how one project spawns the other. Right, I want to go back a little bit or ask you about this more specifically, which is what was your first touch point with Web3? Coming from the music industry, film industry, entertainment industry, we actually have a pretty similar background. How did you first hear about this? Was it NFTs that got you into this? Was it gambling during the pandemic that got you into this? How did you first hear about Bitcoin or explore this sort of Web3 blockchain monolith?

Seb Moriarty: 5:14

So I kind of got introduced to crypto quite early in 2013 when I was just finishing high school. And yeah, listen, obviously if I could go back in time, things would be different. But one of my best childhood friends still one of my closest friends he had been buying Bitcoin when we were finishing school, and he was actually arbing it. He was buying it in the US and then selling it in South Africa and playing with that arb, and I remember I'll never forget he was like hey, dude, can I use your bank account because I have a million rand limit or whatever. So I was like no, dude, like that's not sketchy at all yeah, that's not sketchy at all.

Seb Moriarty: 5:56

I was like, and he was like I'll give you this much money, dude. I'm like no dude, it's just not. You know, I was more interested in playing club gigs and hosting events. You know, I I did not have the finances for a long time to indulge in crypto, but he would always I mean, we would never would go out anywhere. He would always bring his laptop when we go for lunch because he's in a trade or whatever. So there was, it was always there, it was always there, but it was just out of reach for me. I just never had the finances for it. You know, looking at charts and things like that necessarily were not something that I was like, oh, that looks like something I want to do. Sure, he's a millionaire, like he's loaded, but it just was not of interest.

Seb Moriarty: 6:28

And then in 2021, I think it was I remember Top Shots came out and there was like the Blau song, you know, NFTs, and I was like, okay, that's pretty wild, so kind of started dabbling into a bit of crypto. There I was making a little bit of money doing commercials. And then 2022 is when a very close friend of mine showed me his Ty robotics NFTs, and I was like holy, like dude, these things are insanely valuable. And he told me how much he bought them for, and I had a little bit more money to play with and Solana was definitely, you know, an easier entry point as opposed to ETH.

Seb Moriarty: 7:02

I went, think I went to Opensea once and I was like, nah, fuck this dude, this looks terrible. And then I'll never forget him telling me about going on Magic Eden and I just remember all of it felt so mystical. I was like, oh, magic Eden, this magical place with all these NFTs, and you know, oh, wow, and that really just got me hooked. I was like, oh, I'm a lot more interested in pretty pictures and buying those and selling those than I am essentially looking at a graph or chart, essentially Because I wasn't looking at charts. Then I was just going, oh, there's NFTs of value. So that was really kind of how I got involved.

Lukas Seel: 7:37

Yeah, and then so getting hooked on NFTs I think I share that story. And then how did you was it the community of one of these NFT communities that kind of got you sucked, you deeper into it, or how did you end up at, you know, founding all of these things or getting involved in a more, let's say, professional way also?

Seb Moriarty: 7:58

So it was actually Monkey Rejects, a lot of Monkey Rejects. That really got me hooked, because that was the first NFT I ever bought. I still hold that NFT and that community was just incredible. You know, I think people forget, but monkey rejects were probably one of the the the strongest onboarding communities of people outside of the of the Web3 space that that I've seen in a long time, because they had this whole movement of web two, web first, web three, me and all these kinds of things and they were just very appealing and you know, there were like tons of big twitter spaces around the community. Like the community was really big. I mean, at one point the Monkey Reject crown trait was like was more valuable than DeGods. People were going for that as opposed to buying a DeGod. You know, obviously they shot up in value afterward and I'm sure some people regretted their choice. But I even wanted a monkey reader crown. You know, um, that community was so welcoming and like was was just really somewhere that I could like kind of you know, start feeling the essence of what a Web3 community is, and I think what really got me is I entered this competition to win a Monkey Reject on this massive space.

Seb Moriarty: 9:02

There were like 300 people on there or something like that, and I'll never forget it, because I was like, oh, if I can just enter these competitions and win these nfts because then I was still a little bit in there for like the profit, you know, I did like the technology, but I was like, wow, you make some money here, this is cool. And they, they named the winner and the guy isn't in the space. And I'm like I didn't win. And they're like, okay, we'll re-roll it. And they roll it and they're like, oh, Seb. And I was like, dude, you gotta be kidding me, bro. Like, so I won this monkey reject on this massive space. And then I was PFPing it and then from there I started to jump into Twitter Spaces because now I had something to talk about, now people had something to recognize me by. They were like, oh, it's you the guy who won the Monkey Reject in that space. And then it just kind of steamrolled from there.

Lukas Seel: 9:46

Yeah, I think that's interesting. Also, this PFP thing is interesting. Right? You have the monkey obviously in your PFP. It's such a big thing. I think maybe not as big anymore, but it used to be such a social status symbol to have that in there. It still is, otherwise you wouldn't have it in your PFP.

Seb Moriarty: 10:13

But it was Solana Monkey Rejects on SMB.

Lukas Seel: 10:15

Yeah, yeah yeah, I'm just saying, like now you have, you're still rocking something that is very status-heavy, and I think that's also an interesting community to talk about, because I think, if we're talking about builder DAOs, MonkeyDAO is kind of the other DAO outside of Radiants to talk about. But so, taking it back a step again, so you enter these communities, all of a sudden you have, this social kind of belonging feeling, I assume, through through these things. And then how, how do you end up at you know, even co-founding Phase Labs and and how did you actually, you know, start a business in this? Because I think it think it's interesting. NFTs are interesting. We can talk about the difference between real businesses and NFT businesses and all of this stuff, but obviously Phase Labs is just a serious business. How did you go from recognizing the power of this, the ways of Web3, which includes all of this community stuff, and then to pivoting to something that is, you know, a real, you know proper business?

Seb Moriarty: 11:32

So I mean, I kind of, you know, started to just jump into working for projects pretty soon after, like that, you know, winning that NFT, and just kind of seeing, oh, here's an opportunity here. Obviously, with COVID and everything like that, I did end up losing my job, you know. So I was kind of like I need other areas and you know, Window was doing, was doing well, like, but it wasn't necessarily bringing in enough money for me and, I was also kind of currently making a move to the, to the United States. So I was kind of in this limbo zone, and I was like, okay, well, this is something you, while I'm in the States, busy getting like my green card renewed and things like that, I can just, you know, go fully into this. So I was like, cool, I've got six months, let me just try, let me just see what I can do here. And I just went all in.

Seb Moriarty: 12:20

I worked initially for this company called DGN Comps. They were like one of the first projects to do like basically raffles, and they had these like totem NFTs and you could rev share. You know, I ended up leaving that because I wasn't really agreeing with what they wanted to do. And then I found Crowdsurf, they hired me as BizDev, and it was a really great product, like basically pledging NFTs to hold them and then you'd get a score based on your investor tier for holding NFTs. You get whitelist, actually the first first project to ever do pre-sales. Actually we built the first pre-sale platform, which leads into you know seeds. Later, then I left them because they started to do gambling and I was like it's not my vibe, and then through working for Balloonsville, because for the derug it was Sock and Omega, and I jumped on there to see if I could help them with the derug of the project, because they were looking for people. So I kind of put my talents in a group or into a channel and they were like, oh, do you want to come on and help? And I was like, yeah, sure, because I was like if I can help them derug this project, then that's like the hardest thing you can do. So I kind of wanted to challenge myself. So, yeah, I was jumping around doing a few different things Love those guys as well. Absolute legends, kidding with Proposa and they did a great job with, you know, with derugging that project.

Seb Moriarty: 13:36

But you know, I started to kind of see these different trends or kind of see the space a little bit more and realizing like, okay, there are these opportunities here, and what happened with Phase Labs actually is. I was trying to figure out like, okay, well, how do we as at Balloonsville, you know, when I was working for them like how do you get out of this negative stigma of having being this massive rug, that this, this kid, you know this, this menace to the space you know right door, these people you know in this project? How do you change people's perspective of that? Like that, that's really hard to do. So I just thought like, okay, well, why don't we try and go a little bit more tech side? Because it was just like kind of staking and you know LP, because they had to stick with the LP, because that was the main thing and obviously Magic Eden gave a ton of money for that. So I was like, well, how do we kind of like change this a bit? Maybe we go into blockchain investigation? Like why don't we help investigate rugs and change that? So I was on a Twitter space and Davao was on the Twitter space.

Seb Moriarty: 14:32

He's our CEO at Phase Labs and he derugged a project called Dead Monkeys. So you see the trend here we're all deruggers. And essentially he was talking about some of the stuff that he did, kind of investigating these rugs. So I was like, okay, cool, let me contact him. And through that we started to have a conversation about what they were building, which was kind of an escrow platform for funds, for bids. Basically, funds get locked up into different milestones and then upon completion of the milestone, the community will veto votes whether the work has been done, team submits it and then the next phase of funding gets released. So we all came together on that and me, Sock and Omega joined Davao, Kimo, Slog, Professor Mint, Dan on that team and a few others. And then that's how Phase Labs really formed. I mean, it's grown into what it is today. I know it's a little bit of a long-winded answer, but but yeah, essentially that's how Phase Labs came about no, it's, it's a.

Lukas Seel: 15:33

It's a great answer, because I'm even going to ask you to continue this long-winded answer, and and guide us all the way to you know, spawning Radiants.

Seb Moriarty: 15:44

Oh, okay, yeah, so what actually happened was Radiants was something, was a name that had been like kind of thrown around a bit in the group early on. It was something to do with auction tech and you know it was definitely something that, like Kimo was very passionate about. So it had been around for about two years, this idea, but nothing had really come of it until about like eight or nine months. But nothing had really come of it until about like eight or nine months ago where it really kind of started getting spearheaded again. And you know we'd had a lot more experience in the space, we kind of had time to ideate and you know Kima really had this like idea around this platform. And then Tabawa after he's better telling the story than me, but since she was at the dentist getting his teeth done and on lots of laughing gas, he had this idea of well, why didn't we burn NFTs to win NFTs? So that's where the kind of auction tech came out of it. So you know the whole thing was okay.

Seb Moriarty: 16:40

Now that we've experienced the space enough, we've, we've done all these different derugs, how can we build this initiative or this platform or this brand and go and actually help these collections by absorbing these burned, these rugged NFTs, or this collection not necessarily that's rugged just has nowhere else to go. They made a bad decision. Their business model doesn't work anymore. The space has changed. Burn their NFTs and then bring them under our umbrella, bring them under the Radiants umbrella and build whatever they're doing in one place, because we realized that all these derugs we did like Timo with Bears Reloaded, Davao with Dead Monkeys, me helping with Balloonsville, also doing all these in the blockchain investigations we realized that the problem is, these people try and derug these collections and they do it in like a little siloed environment, like there's no one going to help.

Seb Moriarty: 17:33

There's no one going to help you on the fringes of the NFT ecosystem. There's no relevance. What benefit does it give people? People here mainly to trade and make money. So if we can have a home for these people and for these projects to actually have a chance at being what they intended to be because they have good technology, they have a good idea then Radiance can be that and we can essentially clean up the ecosystem of these unneeded NFTs, essentially creating a sink, because all there is is a faucet. There's only more NFTs, there's more NFTs, there's more NFTs, there's more NFTs, there's more NFTs, but there's nowhere else that they can go. They're just all sitting there, useless, unchained. So yeah, that's basically where the kind of auction model came in and what Radiance kind of stemmed from yeah, so interesting.

Lukas Seel: 18:18

I think, you know, letting all of this talent in all of these NFT projects that had some really good ideas go to waste is really a shame, right?

Lukas Seel: 18:27

So I think this way of getting the talent that is in these projects, you know, giving them a new home and making whatever they wanted to build in a bigger boat, in a bigger ship, with more talent from different areas of expertise as well, right? So it's so interesting how you can build these synergies inside of a larger organization, and this is kind of where I want to take the conversation as well. You know, community is obviously overused and a terrible buzzword in this space, but there's something to it, right, and there's something to the overused concept of DAOs that aren't really DAOs and all of these things. Talk a little bit about how you guys went from, you know, having this idea of, let's say, in-housing talent and then executing some of these ideas and how this structure well, how it was first structured and then how you guys came to find a system that works and a system that can actually deliver results in all of these different areas.

Seb Moriarty: 19:34

So it really is like a consistent learning process. In essence, it's a really big experiment. This has never been done before. It's really hard to kind of manage all of these different moving parts and you know, that's why, specifically at the moment, we've kind of made a decision to kind of stop accepting, like, different collections for now and just focus on the ones that we have, like you know, Netrunners, sketchy Scales, we also have Player 2s that I'll get into as well. Where that comes into deflection as a service, I always have the Dead Monkeys, Bapes, which is a BoardKings collection. So we obviously have to get rid of some of the team members' collections as well to kind of exactly prove that point of bringing all that resource into the singular entity which is Radiants. So we kind of we're kind of learning as we go along. But I think we're at a stage now where we've absorbed quite a lot, we've burned quite a lot of nfts and now we're getting to the point of like, okay, well, now we need to start building out these, these different projects, like Gleam, for instance, which which was Ape Energy Labs. They're doing carbon credits on chain. So you know, the Ape Energy Lab NFTs are biddable, it can be burned to win a Radiant and essentially that's one of the bigger projects under Radiant. How do you do carbon credits on Solana? So, yeah, we kind of like in that stage of now, we're actually building out these things.

Seb Moriarty: 21:03

But alternatively to that, which I think is a really, you know, nice part of Radiants is that you don't need to have the NFT to be part of the community. There's a lot of developers and people in there that in our idea board channel put out ideas and then people in the community just build them. Like you know, more recently there was an idea put up of a Solana Stumbleupon. I don't know if I'm sure anyone here who's like you know was on the internet in the 2000s with no StumbleUpon, which is basically like you put in a bunch of topics or categories or whatever, and then you stumble, click, stumble and it just puts you onto a random web page on the web, you know, within your categories. So I put this idea out and we called it FumbleUpon, and Timot, who's just a community member in our Discord he was like yeah, I'll build it. So there's literally the FumbleUpon app. You can go on there, you can fumble across the Solana blockchain 558 different dApps and it'll just, you know, like you can just explore the blockchain, which is really cool. This is like some other fun things like PFP generators and this kind of stuff.

Seb Moriarty: 22:06

So that's like a byproduct of this from not just absorbing, you know, these collections and that technology, but also absorbing talent, as you said, not only from the NFT projects, but just in general, a place where people can come and be part of a community. And we have these contributor NFTs which are handed out to people that are contributing to to the, the DAO, and that are doing things. And basically, you know how these contributor NFTs work is. If you're there, you're busy putting an effort, you're building things within the DAO. You know, you will receive a contributor Radiant and that gets locked up for a year, so you can't sell it for a year and you know that's just a great way to grow the community other than just doing the auctions.

Seb Moriarty: 22:42

So, if you want to win something with an auction, yes, you can win it and you can maybe sell it if you want, or you can contribute to the community and the DAO and you can actually receive one. And, you know we have like some small grant programs in there where we, you know, have a bit of money that we, that we're raising so that we can actually start to also finance some of these ideas in the idea board. And you know, we do pay some of our members who are doing things here and there where we can, of course, but it's a doubt. The whole point of this thing is to try and get it to a place where the community can self-sustain and we can actually have this fund on Align, on V2, which we're going to be having out soon, that we'd have the Radiants fund on, and we can just really let this community just grow and amass whatever they'd like to do.

Lukas Seel: 23:24

Yeah, I think so cool and I love this idea of Web3 is also a playground right. There's all of these amazing builders. There's so much room for experimentation that there just isn't in the Web2 space, and so being part of communities that are just creative and have people that can execute ideas, you know, without needing a huge budget, but just because they want to try something, and you can see if there is a business to be had somewhere at the end of the road but first you can try some stuff, you can learn some skills, you can meet some people, you can find collaborators right that you build a serious business with, after you fumble upon them in the Web3 space, and I think that's such a great differentiator between the traditional space and the Web3 space and I think, yeah, you can really be proud of what you're building there. I got to visit the Discord a little bit more often.

Lukas Seel: 24:21

Kind of want to get to our main topic, because I think that's a good segway. You talked about funding, you talked about building and here you are hosting a hackathon with I don't know how much in prizes half a million, $350,000 at some point, I don't know. It always depends on the BONK price, right. So let's talk about how that came about and how it's going.

Seb Moriarty: 24:46

I guess so how the Bonkathon came about actually is also interesting because it's part of you know, because Phase Labs is also involved in this. We've been running a fund or we've had a Bonk fund on our Align platform for about a year now and Align. What Align is, it's a community multi-sig. So we had the like the kind of beta or V1 out for the last year or so, which was built basically by placing in in different hackathons for it and getting funding that way, and then we ended up getting a Solana grant and then a Bonk grant for this to help build out some of the info for the Bonkathon. And the V2 of the platform is what the Bonkathon is being hosted on. So it's just the updated version of our Align platform. It's got bounties on it, it's got proposals and then it has the hackathon functionality.

Seb Moriarty: 25:40

And basically how this happened was we've been managing this fund on there with the Bonk council for about a year, so people can go onto the platform, they can make proposals, people can vote up and down on it. It's more of like sentiment check and then the council will then decide whether it goes through or not. So it's like a grant system, up and down. Yeah, it's a little bit. It's not like a traditional DAO, like on realms or whatever like that, and I think that's not a bad thing. You know, I don't think that's a bad thing. It can be more traditional, like we are going to have more kind of traditional DAO features. But you know, for some groups and for some funds, I think you know it makes sense to have a little bit of a structure there. And what we did is we put a proposal out as Radiants because we thought, well, why don't we post? It would be cool if we did a hackathon. So we put out a massive proposal on the Align platform asking the Bonk community on there if they would like to do this. The council obviously loved it. You know, we've obviously worked with them for a while and you know, I think we proved ourselves as a group that can actually do this well, because it's not easy. Like, let me tell you, running a hackathon is not easy. It's a lot of work, you know. There's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of things that you really have to account for and, yeah, obviously, building up the technology for it to be hosted on as well, it's also no easy task. So we put out this proposal, we put out a tweet. It got insane engagement. I mean it was huge. I mean it was like I don't know 300,000 impressions or something crazy. We got good upvotes on the platform. So, yeah, essentially that went through and we got the funding for it. It is $350,000 in USDC prizes and we did choose this because it just doesn't make sense to do the Bonk. It fluctuates too much. So, yeah, $350,000 in prizes.

Seb Moriarty: 27:27

Six tracks You've got AI, defi, gaming, public goods, consumer applications, which is the main track with the grand prize of $40,000. The rest have $30,000, $20,000, and $10,000, and it's first, second and third where consumer access falls. And then we also have the Solana Renaissance Continuation Track, which is $50,000. That's being funded by Solana Foundation and that's essentially for people that did not place in the Coliseum Hackathon. So if you didn't get placement in it, you can re-enter your project into the Bonkathon. It doesn't have to have a Bonk integration. That track, only that track, but obviously it definitely would look favorably upon if you do it.

Lukas Seel: 28:07

So yeah, Can you talk? I didn't actually. I guess I didn't read the entire thread or something, or it was just lazy and overlooked it, but that's such an interesting little twist that the foundation is now specifically giving another grant to people I guess, but there needs to be some add-on versus the the renaissance submission or how does that work? Because I think that's a really interesting idea to actually encourage builders that that put in so much work but there's only so many prizes to go around. Give them another few months and then have them submit a better product that is probably refined, more battle-tested, through the rejection at the first hackathon and then ship something. That's really amazing.

Seb Moriarty: 28:56

Talk about that 100%, and I mean that's really the goal. I think, with the continuation track, it's a second chance for teams that just didn't have enough time, maybe, or maybe got even overlooked, which is something that is common, I think you know. Referring to an interview I watched with Maddie the other day, the one of the founders of Coliseum. I mean, in the first hackathon, one of the first hackathons they did in 2021. Squads was part of that and they didn't make it. They didn't place anywhere and look at them. Now you know they were overlooked at that point. You know, maybe they just didn't have enough time or they weren't far long enough.

Seb Moriarty: 29:28

So this is really like an opportunity for people that participated in the Coliseum hackathon to have a second go at glory. You know like it just gives them a little bit of extra time to pull down, learn from what they've done, and I think this can become a more common thing. You know, I think Solana is very good at hackathons. It's one of the best things I think about Solana. Even Mert said like he initially was attracted to Solana because of their hackathons. So you know, if this bunk-a-thon can become a yearly thing, I think it could be incredible.

Lukas Seel: 29:58

I think it'd be really something cool and fun. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's so cool that the foundation there is supporting this kind of effort with this very cool idea, I think. And it's also amazing, obviously, that this kind of hackathon is run by the community or by a DAO from the community, and I think that's super significant. I'm not really aware of anything that has been even close to as big, but talk a little bit about the difference between you know the Radibacks, but there's also some advantages that come with being essentially an independent hackathon that just has integrations and has different partnership dynamics. How did that go? And then, how are you? I think it's ending in two weeks or something. How has the reception been and how is all of that going and how does it compare to your standard Solana Foundation hackathon?

Seb Moriarty: 31:08

So I think it's actually we're in an interesting place because basically, coliseum is taking, or they've taken over hackathons from Solana Foundation. So Solana Foundation isn't really they aren't really hosting these hackathons anymore, they're. They're funding, you know, obviously, portions of it, and Coliseum is basically like they're taking over that for the Solana Foundation. So it's kind of like it's a trend. I mean, at the end of the day, Solana Foundation needs to put themselves out of the job. That's like their whole, entire, that's their core job is that they shouldn't be around in 10 years. You know it should be the community running these different things and and and that's. We're starting to see that more and more. You know, like I mean in the, in the short three or what four years or whatever that salon has been around. I mean it's pretty incredible to see how much is being community-led at this point. Uh, different events around the world. You know, obviously, you know Coliseum and then you know us being able to do this Bonkathon now, which, again as well, is like it's kind of like BONK is obviously they are the cool decision makers in a lot of how this thing happens, you know, or different parts of it. But you know we're running it as the community, so it's pretty cool to see these different entities that can actually run these different things instead of these like kind of singular you know companies or whatever you'd like to call it. So, yeah, I think the reception has been phenomenal. I think we had like 350 or 300 or 370 signups, which is really which is really really good. I mean, for the first Bonkathon. I mean, my goal is definitely 500. If we can get 500 signups, that would be incredible, which we have two weeks, you know, submissions begin on June 3rd and they end on June 10th. We have two weeks, you know, submissions begin on June 3rd and they end on June 10th. So June 10th is the final date. Uh, at uh, you know, midnight PST or whatnot is the, you know, like 11:59 is when you can, you know, put your submission in. I think it's gone fantastically well. I mean, I think BONK is in an absolute, you know, uproar at the moment, a positive uproar, you know, absolutely crushing it on the charts. People love BONK.

Seb Moriarty: 33:04

I think it's a challenge the Bonkathon because, you know, obviously integrating Solana is one thing and you know, I guess it's the same thing here. You're integrating. You know the token, but like, obviously, how interesting can you make it? Like, how interesting can this platform be? Like, how interesting is the integration? Obviously, having BONK, as a payment, burning BONK, great, those are amazing. Rewarding people in BONK, those are all the obvious things and I think most of these products should have that in some way, shape or form or one of those things. But it's very interesting to see how people are going to go the extra mile. What are they going to do to make it a little bit more exciting? How can we push the envelope of what an integration can be? And I think that's what we're going to see here. Uh, you know, for the winning teams, it's going to be interesting, but all in all, I think it's been an incredible success.

Seb Moriarty: 33:50

Obviously have to give a big shout out to the rest of the team as well. You know, like it takes all of us to do this. You know, shout out, to Hanko, absolute legend. He's an avid Radiants goer and one of our early contributors. And then Luigi, in the audience there, he's actually one of our front-end devs for Align. Thank you, dude. You know all the work you put in, you and the guys like making the platform what it is. So, yeah, just shout out to the entire team, you know, Davao Kimo Slog, Professor Mint, our dev board king, you know, and everyone else, who really makes this thing tick. So, yeah, it's just really been an incredible, incredible event and I think if we can keep doing this thing, man, we'll just get keep getting bigger and better I'd be so upset if I wasn't in that lineup, but actually it contributed.

Lukas Seel: 34:37

Now you said way too many names, but I want to just hone in on one thing that you mentioned there, because I saw our good friend Tony actually talk about how many hackathon projects are still active, what the tangible results long term are of hackathons, and I'm just wondering do you guys have a plan of? You know there's going to be the submission deadline, people are going to submit, some people will win, some people won't win. Is there like a support system where you have this long-term sustainable community impact to then also help these projects grow into more than just a hackathon project?

Seb Moriarty: 35:17

I think you know that is definitely something that we need to expand on as we grow. I mean, currently we have a mentorship program that will happen with the winning teams. They will have a mentor assigned to them and that mentor will have a couple of calls with them over the next month or two. We have a feedback form from them to fill out, basically just specific questions about the teams, like how are they doing post-hackathon, like, how are they handling it, like what's their development like, so we can really kind of start to get a grasp and a feeling for some of these teams. I think there is a little bit it's a little bit tight on the actual budget in terms of having like a super expansive mentorship program going forward. I think this is going to be for us, this is obviously like a big first time doing this, so this is going to be pivotal in us being able to figure out how can we better help teams going forward after this event. So I mean by no means do I think it's going to be like oh hey, thanks for participating. Like cheers. You know, join the discord, come hang out. You know, join Radants, join the space is good, good like we all here to help. We all want to create, like, more sustainable products in the space.

Seb Moriarty: 36:25

I mean, that is a big problem. You see, a lot of these products, even winning products, they just after a few months they just fizzle out. You know, and you know at the end of the day that is going to happen. It's like there's, it's the, you know, there's like the rule of like VC funds or whatever, I'll invest in 10 things and one thing will make me millions You know, like that's kind of a way to put it in the sense that people are going to have 10 different products and maybe one or two of those are going to find product market fit and be successful.

Seb Moriarty: 36:52

So it is a challenge. It is really hard to, you know, make sure these teams feel like they have enough support and also do succeed, because you can give all the support in the world, um, but essentially, if the product is not, does not have product market fits, people don't want to use it, and then they're already very small space. Yes, we have Iggy and Kate and Jenna making meme coins. Yay, we're getting the masses, you know, but does that mean that those people are going to be if you go and start using hackathon winning teams, projects or tools, I mean maybe, you know, hopefully, if they make sense to that user? So, yeah, it's an interesting. It's an interesting, you know, problem One which we definitely, you know. I think we'll get better at over time.

Lukas Seel: 37:32

Yeah, super interesting. So there is going to be a next bonkathon. Can you already reveal that?

Seb Moriarty: 37:38

I mean I can't say so Obviously, I would love there to be. I think I can't say so Obviously, I would love there to be. I think if this does really well, then we can put out another proposal next year and ask the community again.

Lukas Seel: 37:47

I mean also, by the way, this popped in my mind while you were talking about this long-term sustainability and all this stuff it's fascinating, really, how Bonk specifically don't love talking about tokens and whatever, but especially not meme coins and things that tend to fluctuate a lot in value but it's incredible how this token has really kicked off this movement, this grassroots builders movement, and injected so many possibilities through cash into the ecosystem for builders to really then, you know, build sustainable things, and how much that community has given back to the builder community, to the people that then actually build products for new people to come in for, you know, for our parents to finally have an online casino they can trust or something. So I think that's such an interesting thing and this hackathon is such a great example of how really some of these grassroots projects, even if they might be a little bit speculative in the beginning, can find this strange product market fit in this case and then elevate so many different projects across the space. So really also kind of shout out to that team behind and this idea and all the people that kind of carry this torch now and really make it something sustainable, because I think that's been hugely impressive. Last thing for the hackathon I wanted to touch on is this IRL versus online right. We have never met.

Lukas Seel: 39:24

There are so many people that are coming together online for this event. How do you see this difference in physically being in one space? How does that affect collaboration and the spirit? Or do you see any difference? Inspiration and and the spirit or do you see any difference? Do you? Do you guys have a plan of also bringing people from this online world into the real world in in the future? Maybe even you know at Consensus or something. Maybe you're already hanging out with the people there.

Seb Moriarty: 39:56

So I've actually met quite a while I mean quite a few of my friends or people that I know have entered into the hackathon, like you know, andy cyber frogs, you know, I was chatting to him like a few minutes ago and, uh, I know, I know the guys at Reposa wanted to do something and there's a, there's a few people that I do know in real life that are building stuff. I think irl hackathons are really hard to do, like because you have a very small time frame that these things generally on for. Maybe it's like a week, it's like four days or five days or whatever. You know, you can't have people in one place for six weeks, like it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't, it just doesn't happen or people don't have the time, you know. So I think online is just gives people the ability from all over the world to participate, as opposed to just one singular group that are actually able to get to it. One destination, you know, and then it's very rushed, like it's, I think I I don't think. I think there can be a hackathon, but it should be like a speedathon or whatever. You know. Hey, who can make the product quickly and whatever in this short amount of time.

Seb Moriarty: 40:52

I don't think it makes sense as, like an actual official, like solidified hackathon, you need that time timeframe as a team to formulate an idea, a business plan. You know, if you're non-technical, find a technical dev that can help you build your product or vice versa. You know most like I think, almost all good products or teams generally have a non-technical and technical founder. If you have a non-technical and technical founder, they are both interchangeable in what they can do. That's, like I mean, insane. Like then you're absolutely cooking, like that's huge. But you know you kind of need to have those two. You need the sales, you need the front end, you need the back end. You need to have those two things.

Seb Moriarty: 41:31

So, yeah, I do think that the online aspect is just kind of the best way to do it. But I think as the space grows and as people hopefully make more money and can fly to these different places and meet, then you can have these meetups and five years from now you can have all these different teams over the years that have participated in these things, maybe have got good products or whatever things, can actually meet and enjoy some time together. I mean, I definitely wanted to get a meetup setup. We definitely wanted to have to do some kind of meetup, you know, but it's just hard.

Seb Moriarty: 42:05

When's the right time, how many people can actually be there, like yeah, so with time I think maybe we can, you know, have these irl meetups with, like maybe past attendees or whatever like, because you know this time around, like I don't know, we can can probably only get a handful of people together at these conferences really that are participating. So I mean, I don't know how impactful that is. I mean, obviously it would be nice to see them, but yeah, it is kind of tough to do the IRL thing.

Lukas Seel: 42:34

Yeah, for sure. And, as you've kind of hinted at, it's also hugely expensive, of course, if you start adding the IRL stuff to these events, so I think it's very cool. Coming towards the end of the official part here, so if anybody in the audience wants to come up and ask Seb a question about the Bonkathon, about himself, feel free. To my heart, and I think it's interesting because you're integrating two tokens and you know different chains working together, growing the pie for the space as a whole, not just being, you know, on one chain or married to one chain. You mentioned your experiences with ETH. That probably didn't quite cut it at that point in time. But how do you guys think you know about either getting new people in like from different communities in the in the Radiants space, having people from the outside world really onboarding them to, you know, radiance to your products, for your other companies and this kind of stuff? How do you feel about this overall picture of onboarding, of connecting with other Web3 communities, of connecting the Web2 and Web3 world?

Seb Moriarty: 43:53

So I mean, it's always a challenge really to kind of, you know, bring all these people together. I think you know, obviously in Radiants we definitely do want to kind of expand to. I mean, on ETH, we were close with the guys at at Verbs. Jerk, one of the one of the co-founders is a very, very good friend of mine, absolute legend. He's also a holder of Radiants and you know we also hold Verbs and they're kind of doing a similar thing on on ETH. So I think that's probably our biggest connection to ETH is with the Verbs community and what they're doing. I think we kind of have to get our formula correct before we can start to really look to add in these other communities from different chains, because we need to do it really well here first before we can kind of integrate elsewhere. But I think coming to these events that are a little bit more kind of integrate elsewhere, but I mean I think coming to these events that are a little bit more kind of a broader ecosystem, you know relevant like consensus here I can talk to people that are not just Solana, you know, like it's kind of also people side of themselves and their groups, like well, I'm going to go hang out with the group that's who I know on Solana or whatever. So trying to like push yourself out of the out of that kind of zone and just go talking to people on different chains and educate one another, I think is important. I mean honestly, the best thing you can do in this space if you really want to grow, get better connections, grow whatever business you're building. It's just come to the IRL events, if you can it. Just I cannot emphasize how how much it will help.

Seb Moriarty: 45:25

Like over the last two years or almost well, this year I guess is like that would be the second year. I mean, going to NFT LA last year and the NYC Break Point, and then this year going to NFT NYC again, and then obviously now Consensus, and then Singapore later in the year, maybe whatever's happening in Nashville next month, I think, because it just like really expands your network. You really get to meet with different people and then in that way you can also easily meet people in other chains, because your friend who's on Solana has got a friend on ETH and you get that connection and you know there's not like this online, like tribalism, that's like, oh you know, screw you, you have this Solana PFP or whatnot. So, yeah, I think it's kind of like a slow build, slow growth, but it's definitely there. You know, screw you, you have the Solana PFP or whatnot.

Seb Moriarty: 46:01

So, yeah, I think it's kind of like a slow bolt, slow growth, but it's definitely there. You know, but yeah, Solana is home and that is our main focus, and isn't there's so much to do on Solana? You know, like there's just so much to do in the space on, so it's hard to even think about another chain yeah, I agree.

Lukas Seel: 46:18

I mean it's. It's been so impressive to see all the stuff that's going on there now. Obviously, if you were already in that ecosystem, it's going to be very, very hard to leave or to expand now, because it feels like the work where you are is definitely not finished. So, yeah, definitely agree. I think also, the aspect of going outside of your bubble is actually much easier in the real world, right? Because there isn't this built-in, baked-in sort of tribal community thing that is often amplified by algorithms, and you're in the same discourse as everyone else, you're in the same telegram chats, etc. I think that's such an excellent point, and actually I just booked a ticket to Singapore. That's probably where I will meet.

Seb Moriarty: 47:13

Hell yes, dude, that's going to be incredible. I can't wait. I'm obviously not excited for the 25-hour flight, but as long as I get to see you, bro, well worth the 25 hours.

Lukas Seel: 47:27

I don't see anybody requesting here, so we'll just do a little bit of more casual chatting. I also want to talk about. You talked about Radiants.

Lukas Seel: 47:36

It's a pretty big organization at this point, having some very large projects like the Bonkathon, but you and I are obviously part of a smaller DAO and there's all of these micro communities that I think are very much interesting for this community building and also so much can come out of that. So let's talk about these micro- DAOs and let's give a shout out to Mustache DAO, a ridiculous DAO that you cannot belong to for much longer unless you get back on track there. You know how do you feel about these sort of little communities, and I'll add here, just because that was part of the conversation previously I think that space is very interesting because all of us are on different chains. I mean, like there's majority ETH Solana focus, but there's even people outside of that. So you know how do you, how has that helped you connect the dots perhaps in this space, where sometimes you're just like you need a smaller community to really find your people and not just a people or a tribe.

Seb Moriarty: 48:39

Yeah, I mean mustache DAO. You know, I absolutely love mustache DAO, like some of my closest Web3 friends are in the DAO and I think there's just something so funny about all you know coming together around facial hair on our lips, which is just so good. I mean, I love how it's become like such a thing and I mean, yes, I did shave mine off just once. I'm growing it back, you know. So it's like a forest fire, you know, sometimes the fire has to go through the forest, then it has better regrowth. That's that I'm sticking by it. You know it's going to come back more glorious than ever. And I mean, you know, Mustache DAO has given me a lot more than than just great connections. Actually, you know it, it is literally probably been the most single, biggest networking tool that I've had over the last like year and a half. It's my Mustache. It's actually insane. I think people were kind of a little bit, I mean even now today, when you, when he saw me, he was like you better grow your mustache back. I'm like, yes, sir, I will. So it's definitely been something that I've enjoyed a lot, and also just being part of this group with everyone, like there's something about being in this group with everyone and all very highly technical, successful people in the space Like Mustache DAO got some crazy people in there it's definitely easier to navigate.

Seb Moriarty: 49:51

I think it's very important for people to get into these smaller groups, especially as they grow in the space, because you can just have high-level conversations, you can interact a little bit more. You know some of these bigger communities are tough to really just kind of. You know, meet the right or it can just be a lot. You know there's a lot going on. There's a lot of things happening in the chat. You know Mustache is also a unique one because there's no NFT attached. It's essentially just having Mustache and then sending your proof of stache and you know like you get it or you don't, and there's like what? 69 members or something. Lucas, I think, like you know that's like the cap.

Lukas Seel: 50:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's not a serious group, but it's serious people in that non-serious group.

Seb Moriarty: 50:29

Exactly, exactly, and I mean, even at Breakpoint last year, I remember people were like going on about it, they're like, oh, you're in Mustache. Now it's like, yeah, dude, like people growing Mustaches trying to get into Mustache now, it's just like it's hilarious and I love it and I'm here for it, dude Solana is just the bomb, a great group and it's.

Lukas Seel: 50:46

It's so funny and I think again, I I like my best connections all came through much smaller communities than than these bigge r NFT communities and I think it's so interesting how you can really leverage 5, 10, 20 or 69 quality connections over these huge DAOs or NFT communities or something because they stay nimble, they stay really connected, they stay really close and they stay very helpful and I think that's such a cool way of doing that. And I think you know, as a recommendation to people exploring the space, you don't need to find this huge DAO, you don't need to become part of a huge NFT project. Find like two, three, four people that will introduce you to two, three, four more and that's really a great way of making some actual connections that are lasting and that are impactful over like these you know, huge messy group chats sometimes. I think that's for me, that's been a big takeaway from that experience. Yeah, coming too close here, I'll ask you a little bit like a future question.

Lukas Seel: 51:58

You're at Consensus right now. You're looking at these hackathon projects. You see what they're building. You have a very, very keen sense, obviously, for where the space is going. Where do you see us? And these you know hackathons, these projects, these web three people. Where do you see us in the next?

Seb Moriarty: 52:18

like three, five and ten years I mean Solana is in a incredible place at the moment mean, it wasn't that long ago that it was $8.50. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that day. I remember putting a thousand dollars in at like $9.50. And I still hold that SOL to now and I like I mean that was all like I had. At that point I was like, oh, I'll throw this in.

Seb Moriarty: 52:44

But like the conviction of everyone that stayed here and been here through that entire journey, like I don't know, I think, if you've been here from the time, that what you guys, you could say the downfall to the re-emergence, you know, and like the absolute eclipse of, uh, eclipsing expectations. You know the naysayers and the fighters. I mean dude, the tech is just really good. The community is absolutely bricked like so, so cool. One of the best communities in crypto. It has one of the best stories around. For sure, it is a top three coin and always will be a top three coin. It has got one of the best narratives. It has some of the best tech and boulders on it. Like Solana is just beginning. I honestly think that you know it doesn't matter if, let's say, cardano is a better blockchain. Listen, I'm not saying that it is. But you know, there's this thing in like kind of marketing, like if people don't care about what you're doing, then it doesn't matter, you can have a better product, but if people don't care about what you're doing, it's not going to work. And Solana is a really good product and people care about it, so it has both of that going for it.

Seb Moriarty: 53:50

I think we're just getting started. I think things are going to keep growing. We obviously will probably have a bit of a bear market again. But hey, listen, if that happens and you're on edge about getting into the space, if you have the time, you have the opportunity. That is when you want to get involved. The bear market is for getting involved and it's for building yourself up and it's for building a name, because there's no better time to connect with people, there's no better time to actually build stuff. It's literally the best opportunity you can have, because then, when things go nutty, you're literally in the best position possible and I don't know if we'll have another crazy run like we have. I mean, maybe we will, but a lot of legalization or a lot of legislation coming in now. You know, with the bill that just passed, you know there's all these regulations coming in. You know, if Solana gets an ETH and ETH gets an ETF, like bitcoin, I mean, things are probably going to be a little bit less, let's say, volatile. You know. So I don't know. I just think that you know adoption and you know institutions are looking at crypto way more seriously.

Seb Moriarty: 54:46

Solana just had whatever PYUSD or whatever on PayPal go live Like that's insane. Obviously, visa's here, as long as the chain works and it doesn't go down constantly. You know which it doesn't, it doesn't. You know we've obviously had some issues, but that's just scaling issues, which is granted with a chain that's doing more transactions than anything. You know we're going to have these growing pains, but I'm I'm very, very excited for the future. I think Solana has only, you know there's only has more to come, you know, so bullish as they say I will transcribe that and and post it as an insanely long Solana bull post.

Lukas Seel: 55:24

When do you think your, your parents, are going to start using web3, whether they know it or not?

Seb Moriarty: 55:30

I mean, I don't know. You know, I think my parents are like in their 60s, you know like, do they need to use Solana? Probably not. You know, like I don't know, you know, has their time passed like for using tech that's, I mean, maybe there's a little bit something that they'll use, that has a bit of Solana blockchain technology in it. But I mean I don't know, honestly, that's a tough one.

Seb Moriarty: 55:53

I mean, also, my parents are in South Africa and you know the tech there, not that it's like less advanced, but I mean you're probably going to have things and applications built in Europe and the US and UK and stuff like that. You know just daily things. Then you know, I don't know if I can FNB, I'll bank in one of our banks in South Africa, you know. So, probably they won't need to use it, but I mean it's definitely been like, you know, a great tool in like it's on my little brother I pay him to do some work for me.

Seb Moriarty: 56:31

I can just sent him money across the world with with Solana or whatever, on Phantom? You know, like these things are really happening. So I don't think it's it's the older people we need to worry about, it's the younger generation, you know, it's the teenagers, it's the people in their early 20s. You know, you know us and our cities that are here like, yay, we hit it, bro, like we hit the boom, we're lucky. We'll probably make a career out of this, thank god, you know. But if you, if you're peaking and you're hitting, you're about to hit your 70s, I don't think you need it. You're probably not going to use the blockchain yeah, good point.

Lukas Seel: 56:55

Our hope is with the young generation and it's going to be interesting how we get involved or how they get involved, whether it's even going to be on any of these speculative assets or if it's really the use cases that start coming through more and more. And I think an interesting thing you were talking just a minute ago about how usually teams have a technical founder and then a non-technical founder. I think that's new. I think that's a new development of the past, let's say two years, or of the bear market, because before it was just technical founders that had no idea what they were building or who they were building for, and I think that's such a. It's a much more mature space now in that we're actually considering sort of the the whole picture rather than just like, oh, I just want to build this application. It's like, yeah, but who's going to use that?

Lukas Seel: 57:47

Point there being. build things for the 15-year-olds of today so they use some cool tech and can take advantage of all the things that it offers tomorrow. Yeah, seb, thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking to you. It was a pleasure having you here on Helios Horizon, Episode 8. Thank you everyone for tuning in A reminder if you retweet the above space thing the pinned post, the first one we'll give away a little SOL or something, a currency of your choosing. Yeah, Seb, thank you so much for being here.

Seb Moriarty: 58:29

Dude, thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute blast and I'll see you in Singapore.

Lukas Seel: 58:33

Amazing. This was Helios Horizons, episode 8. We had Seb from Radiance DAO on talking about all things Bonkathon, hackathons, web3 developments and we're looking forward to hearing you again next week and for now, now, bye-bye.