The cats have beef
Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, has two cats: Mochi and Toshi.
$TOSHI and $MOCHI are two cat coins on Base. T caters for devs, M appeals to users.
The perfect flywheel spinners you may think. Nope, their communities seem to have beef with one another. Really? Come on!
Isn't web3 meant to usher in the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible (Charles Eisenstein)? Yet when I read how both communities dunk on each other in their respective echo chambers on Telegram, I am more reminded of adult football fans acting like juveniles!
I was first muted once in the Toshi TG for mentioning the orange cat complementing the blue one, and then banned completely (for celebrating the capital rotation into ETH and Ethereum-related coins incl. 'both cats' on Jan 14 when the BTC ETFs were approved). CANCEL = NOT COOL.
No hard feelings, but since then I lost my interest in Toshi. I check the Toshi TG via my partners account from time to time, and what stands out is how salty the tone of some Toshi Maxis sounds at times; it is so salty you can top-up the Dead Sea with their tears! They seriously criticise orange as cheap copycat and that blue has the OG NFT collection on base! Hello - was the iPhone first?
Meanwhile, over in orange cat Telegram (where I am daily), some folks can't resist calling Toshi NFTs ugly and obsess about "flippening" $TOSHI. To be fair, the tone here is less aggressive/salty, yet this is not quite artful participation either imho:
Toshi NFTs don't need to be cute as Toshi is about helpful developer tools catering for the Cambrian explosion of projects, d'apps and token when it's base szn. I am glad they didn't use their treasury on famous Pudgy Penguins artist Antoine Mingo (which is what Mochi did to create the Mochimon NFT collection). I want them to focus on making their DeFi tools the safest on base, because that gets more users here, which might in turn buy more Mochi token. Simple.
Flippening is some of the dumbest memes ever created by crypto people: it perpetuates rivalrous thinking that brought us the current system so many of us claim they hate. Plus, had Ethereans not focused on flippening Bitcoin in the last cycle...the UX might already be 10x better...and now some fans of the second born cat on base are focussing on de-throning the OG in terms of market cap. Don't.
Don't compare yourself with who someone else is today, compare yourself with who you were yesterday (Jordan Peterson)
It took me way too long to grasp this piece of wisdom. Whilst there are species in nature with recognisable similarities, it is also true that every human is unique; what I learned from biohacking is that the only sample size that matters is:
n=1
I think that applies to cat coins too. Whilst roaming the same land, Mochi and Toshi play in their distinct niches:
Toshi = B2B
Imagine blue cat being animated and speaking in the voice of Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburn): Please new dev, come my way, I will make your project on base safe and sound. Our cool tools are rock solid and will make your users and investors trust you and your token.
Mochi = B2C
Imagine orange cat being animated and speaking in the voice of a female voice of your choice: Please new user step into the web3 wonderland. You don't need to be scared, we are friendly here. Our tamamochi game shows you what is possible on-chain and what to watch out for: there are some bad guys, but mostly on other chains, not on base. Oh, and the cat is cute.
I own both tokens and I think both projects are bloody brilliant. I wish both cats to win their own game and become the apex animal their chosen niche. Then they can fulfil their evolutionary potential: to bring the masses to base.
One more thing: I wouldn't been entirely surprised if we found out is some of the rivalry is somewhat staged and scripted, like the kayfabe agreements in wrestling...
In the spirit of BOTH-AND I minted this water bottle with both blue and orange cats today on this amazing project that form within the substrate of the emerging creator economy:
We are art dealers now, baby!
You buy NFTs because you crave digital status.
We buy IRL art because we support artists.
We are not the same.
That was my mental model until I dived into the Mochiverse in December.
Today, my baby and I own a decent collection of Mochimons by known Pudgy Penguins artist Antoine Mingo, and this is one of my favs as cherry blossom is around the corner:
Before I share my first exhilarating NFT minting experience, let's go back to the beginning...
I got the art bug when I was 17. I lived just under an hour away from Düsseldorf in Germany, which had been a significant hotbed of contemporary art and peaked when Joseph Beuys died in 1986; he radically re-defined what art is (living with a Coyote in a NYC Gallery for a week for example). I started to collect editions from his disciples, which I could afford from the money I earned at the car wash on weekends; blue collar work for high-brow art work.
Art collector - yes. Art investor - no.
Collecting contemporary art gave me a sense of purpose, personal growth, creative expression and connection like nothing before in my life as a pupil preparing for A-Levels. There I was, still a minor, cash in my pockets, drinking champagne on gallery openings rubbing shoulders with local celebrities and millionaires. I was a bit the talk of town for a while and I would lie if I said that this didn't stroke my ego.
I quickly realised that I am not that interested in all the glitz and hype and I preferred to visit artists in their studios building deep relationships musing about art, life, sex and the universe. I knew deep inside that my buys were not strategic but entirely based on what I wanted to live with in my four walls. I could be a millionaire today, but in the end I didn't have the discipline to save enough for a signed Warhhol print etc. I failed the marshmallow test in this regard.
At some point I stopped collecting art altogether and replaced that need for visual expression and beauty with my own digital photography.
My first NFT
I didn't jump into the NFT mania in 2021 mainly because of Paris Hilton. I am grateful for her explaining the tech and culture to me in the layman terms. At the same time, I saw no utility beyond expensive jpegs in the last bull run apart from status: not my cuppa tea really...
Last year, I discovered Rumble Kong League (thanks Early Podcast!) and bought an NFT for my son who plays basketball and lives and breathes its culture - but not yet web3...so me thinking ahead when someone will eventually pique his interest (won't listen to Bitcoin Boomer Papa): you need to own a Kong (or Rookie) to play the game. Bingo! I believe this type of NFT utility will be highly sought after provided the game is great in the first place: play-and-earn, not play-to-earn. 10K Kongs on-chain (Avalanche) - 100 Million basketball players IRL. You do the maths...
Mochimons by Mingo
I wrote about investing into $MOCHI in my first on-chain post here. Immersing myself into the community on TG I soon got this alpha: Antoine Mingo, the artist behind the now famous Pudgy Penguine NFT collection would be the creative director of 3333 Mochimons.
I did some initial research and instantly knew this would be big - and a good thing: the pudgies showed at Art Basel Miami which is pretty much as big and glitzy it gets in the world of art fairs. At the same time Mingo didn't profit too much form the multi-million upside the PPs made their founder and then later on buyer. Naka promises to share the profits more equitably this time round.
Don't trust, verify: I reached out to Mingo to check that it will be really him, and if he will indeed get royalties in perpetuity. From the response I got I can assume that this will be the case, and this is the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Ideally I'd love to see this 'deal' on-chain at some point: put it in a smart contract and throw away the keys! Generational wealth for Mingo's descendants if there will be any...NFT collections like Mochimons can disrupt the (often extractive) art world for good!
My first live mint experience
In one word: roller-coaster!
My adrenaline levels were constantly rising in the weeks prior to the mint. The Penguins had a floor price of around 20 ETH in January 2024 - and a solid bag of Mochimons could mean life-changing money. I lost money in my first cycle, and this was my chance to make our family finances whole.
About a week before the minting event I decided to go all in. I set-up wallets for all my family members. You had to hold 10M $MOCHI (checked in a live snapshot) to mint one NFT with a max per wallet of 5. I knew that the collection would sell out in anything between 1-5 minutes...
“The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.” — Amos Tversky
It actually took two evenings to get the job done because the team postponed the mint as something on their end was not ready on Monday. Can you imagine the adrenaline for 24 hours? So Tuesday it was, and luckily, I had a work gig canceled that week, which was a bummer in terms of lost income, but ultimately the universe wanted me to have that extra space. I felt the pain for peeps in Asia who couldn't stay awake for another night or who had child care duties that night. You know who you are.
Nakamochi has nerves of steel
Tuesday 9pm UTC: the mint didn't start on time and those 20 odd minutes listening to the team on live audio in TG was both nerve wrecking and inspiring: they kept so cool and calm whilst fixing the problem before our ears listening - plus some folks loosing their minds in the TG channel: this was building in the open on another level!
We constantly refreshed all browser windows and were able to mint even 10 seconds before they confirmed the mint was finally live. The result: we got amount we had geared up for. The collection was sold out in under three minutes. My heart racing, the only sentence I said with a chuffed face: baby, we are art dealers now!
HODLing and playing until legging out
Devising the optimal legging-out strategy probably requires - in addition to macro and crypto cycle signals - deep understanding of both the art and the NFT markets. I can draw on my experience in the former, and will study the latter to combine time-in-the-market AND time-the-market.
Speaking of game...one of the deciding factors to go big on Mochimons is their potential utility in the upcoming Tamamochi game: native on Telegram plus a desktop version afaik. Bullish af!
Now add that the Mochiverse is #builtonbase and that Farcaster is blowing up thanks to #frames, I can see a flywheel of of value creation soon setting in motion. We are not in a rush to sell and ATM we are already sitting on a 30x. I bought a big diamond paperweight in orange that sits on my desk under my Mac, in case my impatient-by-nature degen-self wants to turn me into paper-hands. Ask me at the end of 2025 or so...
The reason why I never bought a Warhol back then was because his Pop Art was too low-brow for me. Too much glitz, like his spiritual-mentee Paris Hilton decades later. Luckily, I instantly liked the look and feel of Mochimons because it reminds me of my stint in Japan with its manga comic culture. And with this NFT collection, I am more art dealer than art collector - and that's ok.
The cat is cute
You ape into shit coins and memes.
I do deep due diligence into DeFi D'apps and ReFi protocols.
We are not the same.
That was my mental model until 9th December 2023.
Fast forward two months, and tokens from the mochiverse are my biggest bags, far out on the risk curve! Wait, but why? It all started with me reading this tweet seconds after it was posted:
1. 2021 was about dog coins. 2024 will be about cat coins.
2. Cats are cute.
3. I didn't know that @brian_armstrong has an orange cat named Mochi. Orange cats are known for their risky behaviors. Perfect for crypto.
Lmeow
Meow
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Return on Luck
Sahil Bloom classifies four types of luck, of which three are at play here:
Luck from Uniqueness: Occurs when your unique set of attributes attracts specific luck to you. It actually seeks you out.
See, I follow Yuga bc he is a dev at Coinbase AND an orchestra conductor. I am a bridge builder of all sorts and love unusual intersections - and I played the clarinet as a teenager in a symphonic orchestra. Hence, without classic music, no $MOCHI for me. Thanks for this consequential post Yuga!
Luck from Motion: You’re creating motion and collisions through hustle and energy that you are inserting into an ecosystem which opens you up to more lucky events.
When I do my research it is intensive and fast: I did enough DD in under 2 hours to justify a first invest before the major pamp happened.
Luck from Awareness: The result of your awareness and depth of understanding of a specific domain. This allows you to become very good at positioning yourself for lucky breaks to benefit you.
I have a teenager son and a few Gen Z nephews and nieces; digital natives, living and breaving internet culture bruh. They think that dog memes are done, and I know how much crypto loves a good capital rotation.
Plus, my professional experience and DeFi insights helped me to quickly 'validate' Coinbase's mission to onboard the next billion users - via this unique confluence: 110m KYC-ed customers, L2 Base built on OP Stack, Synthetix launching on OP, Coinbase Wallet, Coinbase Ventures, most Bitcoin ETFs using CB as custodial partner, Larry Fink talking tokenisation of RWA on TV etc. I suddenly saw an Amazon-style flywheel. Above all, Base has no native token (yet), and $MOCHI could very well become a proxy for that. Hence, expanded my thesis and went long - and I have never looked back since...
Into the rabbithole
After this first rush, I discovered $TOSHI, named after the other cat of Brian Armstrong. I will write about the should-be-good-but-isn't relationship between Toshi & Mochi in another post. Sign-up if you want to read it.
Being immersed in the TG group is giving me daily dopamine fixes; when I walk in the forest I find my self giggling at the squirrels.
Then came THE mint of the season: mochimons by famed pudgy penguin artist Antoine Mingo. 3333 NFTs sold out in 3 minutes!!! It was my first ever mint... sign-up if you want to read about my roller coaster experience.
Getting deeper into Base finally led me to Farcaster, which is a fascinating ecosystem: #frames is blowing up their servers rn and this never-launched-Facebook-idea promises to improve web3 UX big time. Yet, this is the most astounding fact: so far, Mochi is delivering on its promise to help Coinbase to onboard the next billion users: people exactly like my partner and son, and not because of Papa the Bitcoin Boomer...but because:
the cat is cute.
The moral of this story: I had to come off my high horse, surrender to what people actually want, in order to surf this amazing wave!
Not financial advice. DYOR.
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