Ep 33 #DPMF Live & @Tboone8 ️from the TI Project ️‍

Space Summary

The Twitter Space Ep 33 #DPMF Live & @Tboone8 ️from the TI Project ️‍ hosted by DPMonksFinance. Explore the latest insights from D.P.Monks Finance LTD and the TI Project in a dynamic Twitter Space event focused on NFT exchange, blockchain nodes, and FinTech innovations. Delve into the significance of XRPL nodes, the role of XRP in the UK crypto landscape, and strategies for integrating blockchain into traditional financial services. Discover collaboration opportunities and growth potential in the crypto and NFT space, alongside the transformative power of XRPL nodes in reshaping blockchain transactions.

For more spaces, visit the NFT page.

Questions

Q: What key developments in FinTech are D.P.Monks Finance LTD involved in?
A: D.P.Monks Finance LTD is engaged in cutting-edge FinTech trends in London, exploring new opportunities for innovation.

Q: How is NFT exchange shaping the crypto market, particularly with FUZION_XIO?
A: FUZION_XIO is at the forefront of NFT exchange, driving trends and opportunities in the crypto space.

Q: Why are XRPL nodes important in the blockchain ecosystem?
A: XRPL nodes play a crucial role in facilitating secure and efficient transactions within the blockchain network.

Q: What role does XRP play in the UK crypto sector, and what potential does it hold?
A: XRP is a significant player in the UK crypto market, offering innovative solutions and investment opportunities.

Q: How can traditional financial services benefit from integrating blockchain technologies?
A: Embracing blockchain integration can enhance efficiency, security, and transparency in traditional financial systems.

Q: What are the advantages of staying informed about blockchain advancements for finance professionals?
A: Remaining updated on blockchain technologies can lead to competitive advantages, innovation, and new business opportunities.

Q: What collaborations and growth opportunities exist in the crypto and NFT spaces?
A: The crypto and NFT sectors offer vast collaboration potential, fostering growth, and innovation across industries.

Q: In what ways can XRPL nodes transform blockchain infrastructure and transactions?
A: XRPL nodes have the potential to revolutionize blockchain operations, ensuring faster and more efficient transactions.

Q: How can traditional financial structures adapt to accommodate blockchain advancements effectively?
A: Adapting traditional finance to embrace blockchain technologies requires strategic planning, flexibility, and regulatory compliance.

Q: What strategies can businesses employ to harness the power of NFTs and blockchain for financial innovation?
A: Implementing NFTs and blockchain in financial services requires strategic partnerships, technological expertise, and market understanding.

Highlights

Time: 00:15:45
D.P.Monks Finance LTD Innovations Insights into the latest FinTech trends and developments in London.

Time: 00:25:30
FUZION_XIO NFT Exchange Trends Exploring the dynamic landscape of NFT exchanges and trends.

Time: 00:35:12
Significance of XRPL Nodes Understanding the role and impact of XRPL blockchain nodes in transactions.

Time: 00:45:20
XRP and XDX in the UK Crypto Sector Insights into the evolving role of XRP and XDX in the UK crypto environment.

Time: 00:55:09
Blockchain Integration for Financial Services Strategies for incorporating blockchain into traditional financial structures.

Time: 01:05:17
Importance of Staying Informed on Blockchain Technologies Benefits of staying updated on blockchain advancements for finance professionals.

Time: 01:15:30
Collaboration Opportunities in Crypto and NFTs Exploring growth and partnership avenues in the crypto and NFT sectors.

Time: 01:25:40
Transformative Power of XRPL Nodes Potential of XRPL nodes to revolutionize blockchain infrastructure and transactions.

Time: 01:35:50
Adapting Traditional Finance for Blockchain Challenges and strategies for integrating blockchain into traditional financial systems.

Time: 01:45:10
Harnessing NFTs for Financial Innovation Strategies for leveraging NFTs and blockchain for financial services.

Key Takeaways

• Insights on FinTech developments in London from D.P.Monks Finance LTD.
• Exploration of NFT exchange opportunities and trends with FUZION_XIO.
• Discussion on the significance of XRPL blockchain nodes in the crypto landscape.
• Insights into the evolving role of XRP and XDX in the UK crypto sector.
• Innovative approaches to FinTech and blockchain integration for financial services.
• Importance of staying updated on blockchain technologies and their impact on finance.
• Opportunities for growth and collaboration in the crypto and NFT space.
• Potential of XRPL nodes in reshaping blockchain infrastructure and transactions.
• Adaptation of traditional finance structures to accommodate blockchain advancements.
• Strategies for leveraging NFTs and blockchain for financial innovation.

Behind the Mic

Initial Check-in

Hello, mic check. Yeah, you are actually clear, Wes, but I'm guessing your Hawaii phone doesn't detect the music. So next time we'll just let palace fly in. But no, you're good, mate.

Start of the Show

Good evening. It's 08:00 it's the 1 September. It's time for DPMF live. We're doing a deep dive into the tyre project. Welcome, Thai project. Apparently he's really talented with his hands. Palace got a result today which I'm very happy about, as you can tell in my voice. Tonight's episode of DPMF Live. In episode 33, it is brought to you by Fusion. By fusion, the decentralized application.

Celebration and Commentary

Palace, you are 100% at a party. There's no hiding it. Celebrating a 1 hour win with Chelsea. How pathetic. At least lose, like, three nil. How you did Liverpool. Come on. Right, well, I'll let you have a break, palace, because I can tell that you've got a lot of company in the background and some banging tunes. So I'll give you a little break and I'll step in.

Market Overview

And you probably had a bit of, what do you call it? Mother's ruin. So I'll quickly cover the markets, then we'll go on to T boon eight from the tyre project, which would be really interesting to listen to. Works really hard with lots of different projects, building merchandise. So really looking forward to listening to that. Okay, so we'll start with the crypto news highlights. Five main ones this week.

Crypto News Highlights

Dogecoin manipulation claims dismissed. A court dismissed claims against Elon Musk and Tesla regarding the dogecoin manipulation. So it's obviously related to him, obviously bringing up dogecoin of occasions and it running in price, but I think it comes down to they just don't own any. So this wasn't much of a case to go on. I don't know the full details of it, so correct me if I'm wrong, another big one is bitcoin adoption in El Salvador.

El Salvador Bitcoin Adoption

The president of El Salvador mentioned that bitcoin hasn't achieved the widespread adoption they had hoped for. I do know that they have been buying bitcoin. It's only a few weeks ago it was in the news, you know, how much they actually had, sort of as a country, as a government, as they have been buying quite a lot of bitcoin. And it's kind of funny, actually, that bitcoin sort of jumped in quite big in El Salvador of all places around the world.

PayPal Stablecoin Launch

PayPal stablecoin recently launched PY USD and it's nearing a 1 billion market cap in less than a year. I was just talking to Wes about this and the others and basically just saying, you know, they've issued, obviously a stable coin and used the PayPal vault, you know, to back their stablecoin. They probably have got a billion in the back pocket. I've never actually checked what PayPal sits at, so it wouldn't be too hard for them to do that as a market cap.

AI Cryptocurrency Transactions

Best of luck to them. AI to AI crypto transaction happened recently Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that the first AI to AI crypto transaction has taken place. And threshold and WPTC merger proposal, the Defi protocol. Threshold proposed a merger with WPTC to prevent a takeover. By Justin sum so that's quick highlights of what's going on in the news over the past week.

Market Pricing Summary

And quick one on the markets. And I'll race through this quickly. Number one, bitcoin, $58,648, down 8% on the 7th day. Number two is Ethereum at $2,500, which is down 9% or 9.5 on the 7th day. Tether is sitting at rank number three. BNB at number four at $522. It's also had a 9.3% to 5% drop this week.

Further Market Discussion

Ranked at number five is Solana at $135, who's had the biggest hit, which is 15.24% down over the seven day. Ranked number six, USDC, ranked number seven, our favoured XRP sitting at $0.56, which is down just under 7% on the seven day. Number eight on market cap is dogecoin, sitting at $0.09, which is a hell. Of a lot lower. It was only 13 couple of months ago. That's down 10% on seven day.

Market Positioning and Closing Remarks

Number nine is Tron, which is at $0.15, down 5%. And ton coin has dropped down, which was number nine. That's actually down to rank ten, $5.34 at 9.43%. Then Cardano has actually dropped out the top ten recently and is now sitting at rank eleven at $0.34. So I'm too scared to go over to palace to continue because he's going to be partying.

Fun Exchanges

Where's. Should we take over and just let palace enjoy if he's cool without. Yeah, if he's busy. But are you in the toilet again? I am, yeah. I've just had to come here just to escape the madness of the children. But just quickly, I'd like touch upon the main news points that you mentioned there. They all seem to concern Elon Musk.

Musk's Taxation Discussion

And one thing that stood out to me as well in recent years is America. China attacks unrealized gains. Now, the reason it sticks out to me is because it was a big source of investigation when Elon Musk was buying Tesla, when he was buying, when he was selling payPal, and certainly when he was buying Twitter, he bought it with unrealized gains from his portfolio.

Musk's Financial Maneuvering

And so he doesn't have to pay tax on those unrealized gains, but then he has to pay tax once he's developed this company, which is, again, it's very strange, and it all revolves around this Elon Musk, I think, is. Yeah, well, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go and live free. No, no, go on. Don't let me step on your toes, mate.

Discussion on Government Practices

No, no. I was going to say it's like. But that you can. For some investments, you can transfer investments from one. From one asset to another and then pay gains at the end. It's kind of like a home. You can transfer your home to another investment, to another home, and then. But pay investment or, excuse me, taxes at the end.

Wealthy Politicians

So I don't really think it's that much of an Elon Musk think. I just think it's a power grab or a money grab by certain elite group or groups in the government. That's all I think it is. It just happens to be that Elon Musk, you know, did what it could legally do. I mean, I'm sure he's got some pretty damn smart ass lawyers working for him, so.

Political Hypocrisy

And you think. You think the politicians don't do the same damn thing? They do it all the time. Hell, they even do insider trading, and they catch him on it. But since they're on top, nobody. Nancy Pelosi is the most successful. Yeah. Did you see, like, loads of members of Congress, like, got some fantastic trades recently?

Pelosi's Trading Strategies

It came out that they're, you know, their trading is better than Warren Buffett. People like. Yeah. And people make. People copied Nancy Pelosi's trading strategy. They look like 200%. Yeah, I was going to say, Nancy Pelosi is like, man, she's the smartest trader in the world.

Peculiar Connections

I mean, she's got so much money or so much profit from a trade. She does well, and she has a. Whole bunch of ice cream in her freezer, too. Funnily enough, when you're talking about Elon being under attack, so he's got. Currently, Brazil are trying, or are going to remove x from being available in Brazil.

Censorship and Control

And Elon Musk, I think it might be in today or yesterday. So correct me if I'm wrong, but the judge has just been caught out of, to do with the elections, and they're gonna basically, Elon Musk is going to release some evidence on it, some papers, and put it on x. But there's a big. There's a big push on censorship right now.

Global Censorship Trends

It's all over the world in different places. Here in the UK, we've got it really hard with Keir Starmer. He's throwing little children in prison for like 20 months for, I don't know, saying something at a riot or whatever it may be. But, yeah, there seems to be a real push about censorship at the moment where they don't want social media, and X has turned into this sort of catalyst of news and really good feeds where people can get information quickly and there's no control.

Last Bastion of Truth

It's like the last bastion of truth, isn't it? At the moment, yeah. It's getting a bit dystopian out there. Watch out, guys. It's getting a bit dystopian. I wonder as well, how close is Brazil to El Salvador? Who's got all the bitcoin? That's a good question. Let me look.

Introducing Tyler

Well, Tyler, can you tell us where are you from? Tyler? Hey, man. Hey. Hey, guys. Does my sound okay, first of all? Yes. Yeah, you're good. Sound good? Sound good? Perfect, perfect.

Tyler's Introduction

Yeah. So I'm from Georgia in the US and still live here, so it's been. I grew up here, went to school here, but, yeah. So that. That's where I'm from. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Absolutely. Really appreciate. I've actually been following you for a while now.

Tyler's Business Overview

Correct me if I'm. If I'm wrong, you. I think you went we. For those that don't know, Tyler obviously has a platform that he produces merchandise on, and some pretty decent merchandise as well. I was looking at it for your website the other day, and the quality is outstanding.

Transition to Full-Time Business

From everything we've seen, it is really good standard of merchandise. And I believe you've actually, if you're taking it on as a full time thing now, I remember reading something about this a while back. Would you just be able to elaborate on your story from starting to where you are now? I'll let you tell it.

Diving into Tyler's Journey

Sure, yeah, no problem. So I am doing this full time. It is scary, terrifying even, but it's worth it. I love what I do. I think that this, the ultimate vision long term for this company, is getting clearer and clearer as each day passes by. And I'm starting to genuinely believe the deepest levels that vision is going to become a reality.

Early Inspirations

When I first started, it was a lot less clear. I didn't really know what direction ultimately I was going to take this. And I didn't know, you know, what all the steps would be. I just kind of knew that I wanted to, you know, have my own thing, you know, and not, you know, I had worked in a lot of different industries.

Education and Experience

I went to school at Georgia Tech to be a mechanical engineer, and I managed to graduate, got, you know, some work experience at Gulfstream when I was working or when I was still in school as a co op. And then after that, I worked in a construction company, did a lot of different things, but, and it didn't matter how well the company treated me.

Entrepreneurship Roots

I just, yeah, I just was an entrepreneur at heart. You know, my dad runs his own business and he has ever since I was a very young kid. And so I grew up in the shop. He makes wedding rings for a living to this day. And so I just grew up in the shop. He taught me how to use cad when I was in elementary school.

Passion for Engineering

You know, like I, I learned all this kind of stuff and I, I kind of knew that I wanted to be an engineer slash entrepreneur from, you know, all the way back then. And a lot of my friends at the time didn't know what an engineer, even Washington, and so, yeah, that's a little bit about kind of how I got to this point. it's kind of started out as like a side hustle type thing, and it gradually grew and grew until I just couldn't sustain that and a business or, and a job at the same time.

Taking the Leap

And I had to kind of take that leap of faith, probably did it a little prematurely, to be honest with you. But, not looking back, I'm really happy to be where I am and to be able to kind of do what I'm doing. And, yeah, it's incredibly fulfilling and I think I've had to make some adjustments and pivots and we can probably talk about that, you know, as we go on through the podcast here.

Entrepreneurial Challenges

But, yeah, it's not been kind of like a cut and dry, you know, obvious path forward in some cases. And I've had definitely the lows, but at the same time, you know, when you do experience the highs of entrepreneurship, there's nothing like it. They're really, I mean, when people genuinely love the things that they receive that you made with your own hands and they talk about it to their friends, and then you get referrals and then, you know, big business comes in and you get all it like it.

Fulfillment in Creation

There's no greater feeling in my opinion. It's just, it's the best. So, anyway, yeah, long story short, that's a bit about kind of the context of how I got to this point. And do you, I know Wes is going to come in with a question. Just hold it there. Wes, check yourself on mute because I can hear myself in the background.

Team Structure with Thai Project

I just wanted to ask, with the thai project, is it you solely on your own or is there others that are with you? Do you have a team that work with you as well? So at this point, it is me exclusively. However, my parents are, you know, like they. So I'm actually sharing a shop space with my parents.

Family Partnership

So they have a shop in Georgia that they make the rings and bike parts out of. And I've just sort of been using the same equipment. I have my own, you know, equipment that I purchased as well that I just have on the floor here. But we're kind of just working the same place.

Collaborative Environment

And so whenever it does get to a point where there's just a flood of business, which tends to happen with me, that there's just tremendous volume that comes in all at once and it's just got kind of overwhelming. They're, they're here to kind of bail me out. And so I help pay rent here.

Future Business Aspirations

And, you know, it's kind of just like this nice symbiotic relationship with the plan that, you know, at some point in the near future, I'll be able to absorb their company into mine and then kind of be able to allow them to take a step back from the decision making day to day of running a business, which is very stressful, especially in today's world where they used to be.

Business History Context

Just for context, back in the day, they were really dominant in the ring industry. There was a lot of business coming in organically, and then you got just these random changes in the Google algorithm, for example, that would just make your search results go from being at the top of the first page to on page five, and no one's going to find you organically.

Impact of COVID-19

And so there were things that they had to kind of figure out along the way. And then Covid happened, and a lot of business fell off from then on and never to this day, fully recovered. So I think they're at the point where they would love it if my business really took off, and then they could just kind of, like, roll into it, you know?

Family and Team Dynamics

And I think that would be great. And there's a couple of friends of mine and family members who have come up to me and they're like, hey, let me know when you're hiring, because it'd be really cool to be a part of this. So I think there's a path for that. We just got to solve the regularity problem with.

Business Consistency Goals

With the business and just make sure that we get consistent sales and can start running profitable ads, etcetera. So there's some things to figure out, but I think we're pretty close. Actually, I have to ask before Wes jumps in, because obviously I didn't know you share a floor with your family.

Supportive Family Environment

And actually, I think that's quite great. You got that support there. Do they ever see, when you're making these and these dog chains and stuff like that? Do they ever see the. The, like, the emblems you create and go, Tyler, what is that? What have you made there? What? You know, what is that for?

Family Reactions

Or are they just. Is it just normal? They, you know, they see all these different kind of crypto logos. They don't ask about it. Yeah, so, funny. Funny answer to that. So, like, they. I don't think they fully grasped, like, XRP, for example, you know, and that.

Understanding Crypto

That's kind of like my main audience at this point in time, but, yeah, it's like the whole crypto thing to them is a little sort of out there. You know, they don't fully buy into it. They don't, you know, kind of see that the, I guess, big picture that I do personally, which is fine, you know, they might one day, but for now, anyway, it's kind of.

Indifference Towards Crypto

That's. That's kind of where we are. But, yeah, they're like. They're kind of the opinion that, hey, if it sells and people want to pay for it, then that's great. But aside from that, they're a little indifferent about it. Hey, Tyler, I think they'll take you seriously when you start paying rent.

Recognition Through Success

Then they'll know that this is paying and they're doing successful. Yeah, absolutely. I think so. And I think we're the. Like I said, I think we're pretty close to that moment where, you know, because, like, I there's been a lot of things lately that have been changing about this business in a good way.

Business Growth Trajectory

You know, being focused on the crypto market exclusively worked really well in, like, 2021, you know, 2022. Actually, 2022 is when I officially incorporated. But we started about six months prior to that. But, you know, like, back in that time, there was a lot kind of going on.

Market Euphoria

There was a lot of euphoria. There was a lot of, like, movement in the markets, and people were very excited. And so that made things a lot easier because you could kind of just plug into the momentum and the hype and everything. And it was just a lot easier to gain some traction that way as a business.

Current Challenges

But now it's considerably harder. You know, like in a bear market, you know, when prices have been kind of stagnant for whatever it is, two years now, people are not, you know, going out and just purchasing merchandise, which I completely understand. And so I've had to, you know, since I'm doing this full time, it's like I had to kind of figure out a solution in the short term, because obviously, long term, personally, I still absolutely believe in this asset class as a whole.

Navigating Market Conditions

It's just, timing is hard, right? So it's like, how do I. Yeah, so it's like, how do I kind of position accordingly in the meantime? And so what I've started to do is position in a b two b posture instead of just direct to consumer, because I've noticed that most of my revenue as a business has come from, like, individual groups that, you know, kind of just purchased, like, dog tag designs as a massive group.

New Business Directions

And so that, you know, kind of opened my eyes. I'm like, wow, you know, what if I could make something that's relevant for companies, relevant for, you know, fraternities, sororities, universities, go get licensed to go that route. And so that's what I've done over the last about six months now.

Evolving Business Strategies

And I'm really excited about this, you know, because there's so many developments happening outside of crypto completely. You know, it's like, there has nothing to do with crypto, but there's just so much happening. But at the same time, you know, I'm not giving up on crypto at all.

Web3 Innovations

Like, I'm still, you know, I'm actually baking in a lot of web three functionality into the business. I can accept crypto payments through Bitpay. Now we're doing NFT token gating through Amora, about to be partnering with TXTRp. Once we build out our Discord channel for our community that we're building.

Future Plans for Community Building

We'll be able to have this native XRP messaging platform that kind of plugs into the Discord channel and also the website. We can build widgets for it. There's going to be so many awesome things that we can do and then we can tie in the NFTs that people get from their merch that are limited edition and actually interact with it through that interface.

Excitement About the Future

So it's going to be really exciting and I think like, you know, there's a lot that you can do from a web three standpoint in e commerce to be very cutting edge and I just think we have a front row seat to that and I don't see many companies doing what we're doing at all. And so even though we're venturing out into kind of like other companies and universities and licensed stuff and all that, like we still have a very heavily influence or you know, like the web three aspect of our business is just only growing.

CAD and CAM Impacts

Right. So very excited about it. It brings me on, you've covered it a little bit there that you've got a lot of business other than the crypto side. And I was wondering whether your skills in cad and cam. I also come from a construction background and autocad is very prevalent in my profession and people who know how to use it properly are very hard to find.

Offering Custom Solutions

Have you found any luck by just having those skills on offer to people? Absolutely, man. I, so I think one of the benefits mainly of my kind of service that I'm now packaging, you know, to offer to businesses is that, you know, we can do custom on demand like designs for you know, so whether that's, you know, designing the, you know, like a cut through titanium dog tag, which it's like, you got to be knowledgeable about the laser path and how much metal you need to leave standing in certain areas and whatever, like there's certain considerations to make there.

Designing Custom Products

Same thing with laser engraving. You know, you can't have too much of like black engraving in one area because it's going to come out patchy. So you have to consider that in the design and all this kind of stuff. And so anyway, you knowing, you know, basically over the last two and a half years of running this business, I've figured out, okay, what my constraints are and I'm able to kind of rapidly iterate on designs for clients and now I'm starting to charge for that upfront in packages.

Building Custom Partnerships

So it's like we can basically be like a white glove service for businesses that are doing like five figures a month on average in revenue that just want to have a merchandising option available, you know. And so if we can come in and say, hey, look, you know, we've got this high quality lineup of stuff available and we can really do your brand justice if you pay this amount upfront, like we'll be able to work with you get, you know, with those 1st, 30 days, we'll get you all these designs you want.

Streamlining Merchandising Solutions

We'll unlimited revisions. We'll get it to the point where it's just perfect for you and then you can start to offer it on your store and then we can plug in on the back end. And it's like whenever you sell something on Shopify, we get it as a regular order on our side. You get that immediate 20, 30% cut, whatever it is that we negotiate, and then I make it and send it to the customer on your behalf.

Future Design Opportunities

And that's kind of how we're positioning now. I'm curious as well, because you've got the skills to do the computer aided design. And I was wondering, are you able to provide designs for architecture, designs for scaffolding, for example, to clients? There's a lot of money involved there.

Expanding Design Capabilities

So the construction side of my history was brief. But, yeah, that's a bit about kind of my experience in that regard. I was definitely knowledgeable in cad regarding mechanical engineering and some capabilities from that standpoint. But I have not necessarily ventured into architecture or building those relationships yet.

Construction Background Discovery

That kind of fell in my lap, to be honest with you. That job, and I never had a construction background per se. It just kind of, you know, there was like a project manager position and they were looking for like entrepreneurial type minds to come in and, you know, be part of that, you know, group. And so I was only at that company for about a year before I realized just like how much of a time sink it was and how I couldn't really do that and this business at the same time. So that's kind of where the construction came from. I didn't go to school specifically for that. It was kind of more just manufacturing. Like, that's kind of my expertise mainly is manufacturing.

Optimizing Manufacturing Processes

And that's kind of where my mind goes, like, just naturally, you know, like I'm constantly looking to improve processes and manufacturing make things more optimized and more profitable so that we can offer better wholesale rates, so that we can improve volume, so that we can improve pricing, so that we, you know what I mean? It's just like this cyclical thing that always can be improved and, you know, in the whole like lean principles and all that kind of stuff, I just love that theory. And so that's really what I want to be able to focus my time on. And I've had to instead focus a lot of my time on marketing in order to kind of get in front of people and for people to understand, like, who I am and what I'm doing.

Learning Marketing from Scratch

And that was a really, I mean, you know, I'm not a marketer. Like, I've had to learn that from scratch and reinvent the wheel. And so that was kind of my thinking going into this new, you know, pivoting the business model to the B2B side of things was, you know, if I could make merch specifically for businesses and specifically for, you know, like, universities and other kind of groups like that, I then I'm relying on the name that they've built for and in some cases for over 100 years. It's like this brand is very well known, and there's a lot of alumni or there's a lot of people in that network or whatever.

Leveraging Established Brands for Success

And if I could just tap into that and then pay a percentage by using the name, then I don't have to, like, build that from scratch and kind of persuade people like, oh, yeah, you can, you know, trust me and buy these products because, like, you know, and just build it from, like, that's a completely different animal than being able to build on top of an existing brand. Which is also why the crypto market worked really well at the beginning because I was, it was XRP that was selling. It wasn't the dog tag itself. Like, you know, nobody cares about a dog tag in of itself.

Community Significance Over Product Nature

But because it's an XRP army dog tag, it has a lot more meaning and relevance to this audience. Right? So because I was able to tap into that is what helped me really gain a lot of traction very early when I had no followers or no brand or anything. And so I was really lucky that I had that opportunity because, I mean, you know, it's like, this stuff's open source. Like, you can actually, you can bring, you can use the XRP name, you know, and some of these other cryptocurrencies. And so that was really exciting. And then I was like, well, what if I kind of did this?

Assessing Payment Models and Cost-Effectiveness

But from a licensing standpoint where, yeah, I pay 10%, but, like, I'd have to pay more than that in ad spend if I was to do something new. So, like, what's the problem here? You know what I mean? So I'm just really excited, you know, like, this is such an exciting angle that I'm really happy to explore. Tyler, I just want to ask, I know who live free down there. He'll be. He'll be happy. I bring this up because whenever we talk to a project or a guest or something like that, we always focused on asking questions about what they do.

Merchandise Transactions and Adaptation to Crypto

It's like a rule. It's like, tell us everything about you. And something just sort of came to me on this. I wanted to ask, would you accept other currencies for your merchandise? And what I mean by that is, would you accept XRPo assets as an example? Would that be something you would accept as a payment method for some of your merchandise? So, yeah, I mean, at this point, what I'm doing is using Bitpay as my crypto payment gateway, and it. So I can accept XRP itself.

Payment Gateways and Compliance

I don't know if it would work for the, you know, issued assets on XRP. You know, like Casino Coin, for example. I. It's possible that I could, you know, accept it through like a Thai project wallet or whatever on this, on Zaman or something. But the nice thing about Bitpay is that it's like, you know, I can determine first of, well, okay, so, like, the reason why I like Bitpay is one because it's like a regulated entity. And, you know, I know that as a business, I have to comply with these AML KYC bullshit laws, right?

Strategies for Cryptocurrency Acceptance

So I have to kind of be careful, you know, in that. And so I just find comfort in using something like that, at least in this environment. Right now, if I'm going to be accepting crypto as a business, I kind of want to at least try to do it right. So there's that, which is kind of where my mind goes. And then also the nice thing about Bitpay is that my wallet address is not public. So it'd be like you're paying into the Bitpay pool, which then pays me out in a percentage that I want.

E-commerce Opportunities with NFTs

So it's like, if I say that I want to have, you know, 70% of a payment for an order that goes through Bitpay to go into XRP, go into my wallet address, and then the other 30% goes into USD to my bank account, I can do that. And it's a 1% transaction fee for the total distribution. And you can do like a combination of whatever you want. So, I mean, you could, you can make it as complex as you want it to be. It's like 10% into Bitcoin, 5% into Ethereum, you know what I mean? But for me, just, I kind of like, I keep some XRP and I keep some dollars, and that's just kind of the way it goes.

Exploring New Platforms for NFTs

However, let me. Yeah, go ahead, let me. So we've just actually built a new platform. So I'm just in some. Yeah, we recently just built a new platform and it came to me as we was talking with your NFTs that you're going to do. I know this, there's a guy in Canada, I've forgotten his bloody name now. Digital. Oh, it's gone from me. But he done. He called it phygital. I don't know if you've heard that term before, where he was selling NFTs and then someone would receive the physical item.

The Concept of Phygital NFTs

You know, it was kind of that kind of process. Now, in fact, the handle few fusion is one of our platforms, which is down below. It's currently in a bit of an internal sort of public. We're not broadcasting it yet. Testing. So you can actually go on it. Anyone on here can actually go on it right now and you could actually use it. It's live on main net. But what we built on there, I'm sort of just given a suggestion here to say if you used to do soul bound NFTs and soul bound NFTs are NFTs that can be transacted only once.

Soul Bound NFTs Explained

So you create an NFT, you remove the transferable flag, and then it's a, it's called a soul bound NFT or SBT for sure. And then it can only be sold to one person, and then, you know, it can never be transacted again. I'd imagine it's probably something like that, you know, would be quite suitable for you. And on, well, specifically on our platform, all XRPL currencies run on there. So if you have an NFT, anyone can apply offers that you know, you're willing to accept in any currency, in any amount.

Bidding on NFTs within XRPL Ecosystem

You know, you could have ten or 100 offers come in you as the owner, you would just accept which one suits you best. And with all the different currencies that are currently in the XRPL, I wonder if it would be quite an interesting arm for your business, for any leftover merchandise that you may have laying around that you may be created and sort of didn't really know what to do, you could probably create them into soul bound NFTs and actually use them on that platform. You know, as I'm just offering a bridge to say, actually, you know, it's an idea.

Integrating NFTs into Merchandise Strategy

I hadn't actually thought of it until we come on this show. But, you know, is that something you've actually thought of, I know you said you're doing an NFT program. Was that with soul bound NFTs? I see. Put a thumbs up for it. I'm guessing you know what they are. So I actually hadn't heard of that before. But I love the concept at this point. How I've been handling NFTs is kind of the opposite of what you had mentioned, where you buy the NFT and then receive the physical product.

Physical Product to NFT Approach

I actually do it where you buy the physical product and then receive a free NFT that comes with. Oh, so you do it in the reverse. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not actually, because I kind of made, the way that I look at it essentially is like, well, first of all, when I first got into this business, there was a lot of temptation to like, go and just start my own NFT project.

Resisting the Temptation of NFT Projects

Go and start my own token project or whatever, but I resisted the urge because I wanted my company to cut. Well, first of all, because, like, everybody was doing that at the time. I mean, there's like no barrier to entry to do that. Like, it's very simple to do relatively obviously. Like, if you want to do it right, there's like a lot of, like, marketing tactics you can do. There's a lot of, you know, like, brand building that you can do to do it right.

Focus on Core Business Skills and Identity

And, but I just kind of saw, at least for me, if I was to jump into that and kind of just follow what everybody else was doing, I just get lost in the noise. So I wanted to kind of just like, be, you know, focus on my skill set, which was, you know, making physical things. That's like what I'm good at, what I like to do. But I also love this industry and I wanted to kind of use or essentially create an audience around that.

Navigating Regulatory Concerns in NFTs

Right. And so for me, you know, getting into NFTs, it's like I didn't want to sell the NFT because there are, you know, there's still questions about that and like, how that really works from a regulatory standpoint and all that kind of stuff. And again, I'm trying to, you know, build like a long term business and I don't know exactly how that's going to go, and that's just me.

Managing Complexities of Running a Business

Yeah, I'm sure it's fine. You'd have to consider all the taxes involved. Yeah. And how do I. Physical item, the pricing, etcetera. Yeah, I get you. So how do I. Yeah, from an accounting standpoint, it's like hard enough to frickin run a business as it is, right? Much less adding all these different cryptos and, you know, trying to figure it all out. So that was kind of my original take on.

Simplifying NFT Distribution Strategies

It was like if I could just sell the product and then just like send them a free NFT, that's a completely like that. That doesn't even need a license, like, because on Shopify, if you wanted to sell NFTs, you have to get a license to do that, right? So it's not like you could just go out and do that. I don't know why, it's just the way it is. But if you're just giving them away, that's a totally different story.

Creating a Unique Collectible Experience

And they still have that collectible kind of feel because the only way you can get it is by buying a certain product. And so I tend to do that for limited edition things. Like occasionally I'll make a keychain or something that's related to an event that happens. For example, when XRP was declared not a security last year I made a keychain for that. And those sold really well because everybody was really excited about it.

Event-Centric Merchandise and Partnerships

And so I just commemorated that in a limited edition piece. That was really cool. But at the time I didn't have that relationship with Amora, which is that Shopify partner that builds out on the XRPL ways to distribute NFTs and also TokenGate. It can also give people discounts. It can give people access to purchase certain items if they own a particular NFT.

Unlocking Exclusive Access through NFTs

So it's like you would essentially plug in your, or connect to your Xaman wallet through the app on the Shopify store. On my Shopify store. And it would be able to look through and see, is there a particular NFT that we're looking for in there? And if there is, then it unlocks that feature, whether it's a discount or the ability to purchase. And I think that's an incredible opportunity for e-commerce companies because, you know, potentially say, I wanted to do a collaboration with junks, for example.

Collaborative Marketing through NFTs

You know, the other, he's another, you know, e-commerce player in the eco, in the XRP community. And so, like, if he was to, you know, sell an NFT right through his products, and then I wanted to sell like a junks related thing, then, you know, we could collaborate and essentially be like, if you own this NFT from him, then you get a discount on this or the ability to purchase this. So, and then vice versa.

Innovations in E-commerce Collaboration

It could be the same for him on his store because I believe he has a Shopify store as well. I'm not even sure at this point, but the point is like, we could do something like that. And it's a really interesting way to, like, kind of have a collaborative effect between businesses. So I just think that, like, you know, long term NFTs are going to have a really cool, unique effect for e-commerce companies.

Enhancing Customer Experience through NFTs

And if you're creative with it, you can. You can do a lot of great, like, customer experience related, you know, activities. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited about that, but that's how I'm approaching it right now. Hey, ty, so what would you say are your top five mercury products that sell? Yeah, right now the dog tags are the most popular, believe it or not, the sublimated ones, and then I would say the next would be arc plates.

Popular Merchandise Offerings

We have, you know, those are our asset recovery key plates where you can securely store. They look really cool. Thank you. They do look really cool. Yeah, just don't lose it, but, yeah. Right, well, yeah, exactly. So I think you're less likely to lose one of those than you are to lose a piece of paper that you wrote your keys on, because it tends to be that when people set up a wallet, at least in my experience, and I have interviewed multiple people to kind of get their take on this, you know, from their experience, and I kind of hear the same story a lot, and some of you in the audience might have the same experience as well.

Challenges of Wallet Key Storage

When you go set up a new wallet and then you get to the point where you have to write down the key, it's like, oh, shit, yeah, I have to go do that. And it's just kind of like a. You're not prepared to do that. So you go grab the closest thing you have to you, which is probably a notebook or a piece of paper or something, and you just quickly write it down just so that you have it. And then you're like, I'll do something a little bit better with this later, you know, and you just kind of throw it in a drawer and then you forget about it and you have no idea where it is.

Consequences of Poor Key Management

Within, like, two months, and then five years later when you actually need it because you got a new phone or something and have to restart your, you know, reset your wallet, you're kind of screwed, right? And all that money's gone. So it's just a story I hear over and over again. And at least for now, I know that wallet infrastructure is changing and there's talk about an entirely different way of storing keys and stuff, and then there's also institutional custody that's becoming more popular, et cetera.

Future Trends in Key Management

But I also think that regardless of where we're at in the market and the technological advances we have when it comes to just key storage, et cetera, there's going to be a class of people that are going to never abandon self custody. Just like, how people are never going to adopt electric cars. They're going to always drive a gas powered car because it's just what they want. Right. And that's fine. You know?

The Enduring Value of Self-Custody

So I think that there's always going to be a place for a product like this, and I'm really excited. And plus, you know, we can. We can do other things with our play, too. Like, so there's. I'm sure you guys have heard of Fio for your eyes only, the. The group on the XRPL that does, like, auditing of, like, they do security auditing and stuff like that for different chains, et cetera.

Partnerships for Enhanced Security

Well, they came out with a password manager solution called Crypt Pass, and it, instead of a master password that unlocks that account to access all your passwords, they use a cryptographic key, just like a private wallet does. And so we have an arc plate specifically for them so that you could store your. It's a bit more secure. Right. And then there's also the potential of doing, like, two factor authentication because you have to, you know, for the backup phrase for that.

Exploring New Opportunities with Arc Plate

It's like you want to keep that safe. And so there's a number of opportunities like that, and we just partnered with. Or at least we're in early talks with zero day, one of the most prolific hackers in the world, and he is very interested in having a white label version of arc plate. Very excited to continue exploring that. But anyway, I think this is a cool product. And anyway, yeah.

Merchandise Versatility and Design

So long. Long answer about that. But anyway, yeah, so thanks. That's all right, Ty. We like long answers. I do apologize. Okay, so now the next question would be, what do you think would be? I'm assuming you do custom jobs. What would be the weirdest custom job that you ever done?

Custom Job Experiences

Yeah, there was somebody that came up to me, and they wanted to have. They wanted to have a different token or, like, a different medallion cut out of titanium for every single, like, almost every single stellar project. And they were going to, like, gift it to some, like, I don't even remember who it was. Like some. Some important person in, like, the Q world or something. And I was like, okay.

Unique Projects and Challenges

You know, and I mean, it. It ended up. It was a lot of work. I mean, because every single one of them was different. So I had to make a different laser path, a different, you know, and so that was a lot. But it ended up looking pretty cool, you know, by the end of it. But, yeah, I mean, I don't typically get, like, a ton of really weird stuff, per se, but I do get a lot of variety of things.

The Excitement of Diverse Orders

And, you know, it is fun. It keeps things interesting. You know, like, Jason Brink from Gala games is about to put it in order for a hundred cards that are titanium anodized gold, that have separate, you know, individual QR codes on each of them that will serve as a ticket to get into an event that's super exclusive in the Caribbean islands. Right. It's like, that's crazy.

Fulfilling Exclusive Orders

Like, that's super cool, right? So I. You know, it's like, you better not. Mess up the invitation unless you screw. Up the whole tree now. Yeah. So no pressure or anything. But anyway, it's like I said, it's never a dull day. I mean, there's. There's always something going, and I think that it's just kind of a result of being consistent over years and then having people kind of see that, you know, I'm delivering and that there are big names that trust me at this point.

Building Credibility through Consistency

And so it just. I think the compounding effect of that over time yields a lot more opportunities. At first, it was really slow and really hard to get any job, and now it's still. It still has this moments where things will be dry, you know, go through dry spells, and there's hardly anything going on, but then there's, you know, shortly after that, it's like the floodgates open, and it's, like, hard to even keep up with it, right?

Navigating Business Fluctuations

Because there's just so much all at once. And I'm kind of, like, in the midst of that, in the moment. And so it's exciting, you know, I love to have those kind of problems, believe me. You know, instead of just kind of twiddling my thumbs and being like, huh, well, you know, it's another zero day. Like, what do I do? I guess I'll just make a video and post on X.

Preparing for Future Opportunities

It's like, you know, but then, like I said, all of a sudden, you could turn around and there could be just, like, a massive influx all at once that could just make all of the, you know, two, three months of nothingness just not even matter anymore. So that's kind of been the nature of my business lately. Or really, the whole. The whole time it's existed.

Horizontally Scaling Business Ventures

And like I said, I'm hoping to break that cycle by getting into these other markets and just kind of scaling horizontally with different businesses that we can serve. And they're not going to be tied to the crypto market sentiment. They're not going to be tied to other factors that are seasonal. It's going to be, each business will be its own unique thing.

Expanding Business Opportunities

And so I think the compounding effect of that, if we could just onboard safe, I'm going to cap it at five businesses a month because I want to take care of them. I want to make sure that we do it right. And so I'll charge up front for that price accordingly so that we're filtering out the wrong kind of businesses that we don't really want to work with.

Partnering with Valuetainment

We're going to get high quality businesses and having Valuetainment in the door right now and then having them as a paying customer and working directly with them is such a massive, like, credibility boost that it's like when I go to the, and I'm going to their conference next week, actually on Tuesday, so it's like, right around the corner and having the ability to point at the booth where they're selling my stuff and be like, hey, you know, I made those.

Networking at Conferences

Like, that's an incredible segue into, well, I could also do the same thing for your business. What do you guys do? You know what I mean? Like, and so I'm just excited about the potential. I think that really, at the end of next week, my life could be genuinely different. I mean, I, you know, I don't think it's crazy to even say that.

Transitional Moments in Business

Like, I think that's true. And, I mean, I did go all in on this one event, whereas last year I went to a lot of crypto events and, you know, I was all over the country going to different crypto things, and that was great. I met a lot of people, like the CEO of Uphold and the CBO of Decent Wallet and a lot of people who were interested in what I was doing with arc plate specifically.

Building Connections through Events

And, like, that was incredible. You know, met Dirk from Expector and we agreed to work together. And, like, there's so many things just by seeing people in person and seeing them over and over again at different events across the country, too, it just really adds to the, it's like, okay, I see this guy all the time. He must be legit, right?

Refocusing Networking Efforts

So, so I did that last year, and I was, I had opportunities to do it again this year, but I was like, you know what I think? I think I kind of already got the connections from the crypto side of things. Not that, you know, I'm done, like, but I think that if I instead put all my eggs in this basket going to this conference, which is going to have 10,000 entrepreneurs there, and I focus on the B2B side of things, you know, that'll be, I think, money well spent.

Investing in High-Stakes Opportunities

And so, you know, that ticket wasn't cheap and, you know, but at the same time it's like I'll be in rooms with people who paid 20 grand for their ticket and those are the kind of people I want to talk to about what I can offer to them. You know what I mean? So we'll see how it goes. But I think just having the end with Valuetainment themselves and having them pushing for me is the craziest thing.

Thriving in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

It really is.

Technical Difficulties and Event Conflicts

Ty, I'm loving your long answers and it's great to have you on the show tonight. Firstly, before I ask my questions, I do apologize about my train wrecker and intro. I'm a paramedic at this event and it was meant to finish an hour ago. And the band keep playing and playing.

Professionalism and Work Commitments

It's done my head in. I do apologize to you, Ty. Very unprofessional, but. Oh, palace, sorry, we thought you was at a party. No, you're actually, I'm actually working. I was just finishing work, and the banker playing and I knock it on the head. You can only do madness so many times, it's ridiculous.

Addressing the Audience

Sorry, mate. Sorry. Carry on. Anyway, tight. The designs on your website and on your projects are absolutely awesome. I should concur with a lot of my friends on the panel, they're some brilliant designs.

Solving Key Storage Problems

And you do solve a massive problem because you just said exactly what I do. I write down all these bloody wallet key phrases in a red book, which I'm not going to tell anybody where it is. And then I've got to try and remember what these numbers are. So you've highlighted a massive problem. The tags that you do for your wallets, is there multiple wallets?

Addressing User Needs for Wallet Management

Because obviously most people have got more than one wallet for sure. So can you put multiple wallets on these tags? Yes. So for the, specifically for the Xaman version that I have, because Zaman has a different key structure than like a traditional self custody wallet, like ledger, for example.

Explaining Wallet Compatibility

So we have like the Guardian model that's meant for ledger and decent wallet and trust wallet and all those guys which typically just use the standard, like bit 39, standard key phrase structure. Whereas Xaman is just a string of numbers.

Overview of Wallet and Plate Design

So for the Xaman one, we can fit four wallets one plate and we have it labeled w one, w two, w three, w four. And there is an upsell option. If you wanted to put written text on the top left section of the backside of the plate to where you could write out w one. And then there'd be a colon and then you say, you know, Tyler's wallet. And then you could do thai project wallet or whatever. So it's like you could label each one in like plain English, whereas otherwise you just would have to kind of remember. So that is an option available to kind of keep things straight. And then for the. But for the guardian version, it is just one wallet per plate. So it just, because it's like a longer, you know, it's a through z.

Physical Specifications of Wallet Plates

So it takes up a lot of real estate on the plate. And then there's you know, 24 sections. So it front and back. So unless it's a twelve board price, then you can do two. But anyway, wicked. And they can you fit also the QR code to your wallet on the keys on the plate as well? You know, I don't have an option for that, but theoretically it's possible. It's. That would be cool. But it would basically just give Tyler a business perspective here. He's probably just gone. huh. huh. Yeah. It's all about growth together, brah. Yeah, right? Yeah. No, I love it though. I think. I think it's possible. It's just that at this point, like we designed the art plate to be so compact that we use as little material as possible, et cetera.

Material and Functionality of Wallet Plates

So it's like every square inch of that thing is like pretty much accounted for. And QR codes have to be a certain size in order for phones to read them. I think like about half an inch and width is about as low as you can go typically for it to still be clear. So I'd actually like to pull up the drawings and look at it be like, where can we fit a QR code on this thing? Because that would be really dope. Because wouldn't it be cool if you could go into a shop, you get your dog tag out, you pay on your dog tag and job done. Wouldn't that be cool? Okay, so that is possible. And we can do that. So we have well, to pay with the dog tag is one thing we have now NFC chips that we can embed in them today. Right now. Like, I could do that right now.

Integrating NFC Technology

But the way that we would have to interact with that NFC chip in order to make payments involves a little bit more infrastructure that is being built out through Zaman, I believe. I don't know if that's official, but, you know, I know that they're kind of on the, in the background working on stuff like that. And so hopefully, you know, we've got a, I've got a very close relationship with them. And so I think that down the road, say, if they were to come out with an NFC chip or. Yeah, like, for payments, like, we would be among the first to embed it in our, all of our products. So it's like, you could pay for items like with your cufflinks or with your dog tag. That would just be awesome. That would absolutely sick. And that's the world.

Future Product Integration and Development

That's the, you know, we all have visions about how things should be, and that would be one of them where you could just simply get your dog tags out, pay on, pay your cinema tickets or whatever on your dog tags. That would just be 100%. My next question is, and I'm not sure if you've covered this already tonight because I went a bit awol for the first 20 minutes, but the dog tags themselves, are they fireproof? Is anything that can destroy. So it depends on which model it is. Like, if it's the stainless steel or titanium ones that are cut through, like, absolutely. You know, you could throw that in an inferno, it'd be fine.

Durability and User Feedback

The engraved ones also would be fine that you might get some slight discoloration with the engraving. But the sublimated ones I haven't tested, actually. So I don't. I don't know for sure. However, they are very durable. Like, I, you know, they're, you know, it's very hard to even scratch them, which is great. The coating on them is very, you know, durable, and it's stainless steel underneath the coating, so they've got some heft to them as well. So they feel very premium. And, like, I actually just sent a bunch of them over to Kelly Niles. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with him, but he's in the XRP community and owns a lot of expector land and is, you know, I'm working closely with him on some things.

Marketing Strategy and Events

And anyway, he bought a whole bunch of these tags to give out at the Tucker Carlson event next week. And he just got him two days ago and just absolutely is freaking out over him. He just loved the quality of them and stuff. And we had them sent to London for a BPM event last year, and everybody was clamoring over him, too. We had them sent over to the wave of innovation conference in Australia, and people, they flew off the shelves because they resold them there. They didn't even, you know, have enough, apparently. So we're getting really great feedback on the quality of these things.

Product Accessibility and Consumer Interest

And that's why the dog tags are selling so well compared to almost everything else in the store at this point, because they're kind of like an impulse buy price point. they're just like, a little bit more expensive than a t shirt, but you can literally wear it every single day and shower with it and, like, everything's fine. but also, you know, I think what's exciting is that, you know, we're looking into events when it comes to using the dog tags because, like, any artwork, any image we can put directly on these dog tags. So imagine a concert, you know, like gala music.

Event Collaboration and Collectibles

They have concerts all the time. You have, you have BPM wallet that is looking at ticketing. I think they change their name, like two ticks or something like that. But anyway, same group, you know, we're in talks with a lot of these type of people to, you know, kind of integrate nfts, use the NFC chips that we embed on the tags to serve as a concert ticket to be able to get into the event itself. But then after the event, you have a collectible item that you can keep and remember the event by, and you can, of course, wear it whenever you want, whatever, but it's just such an interesting concept and we have a lot of it.

Future Innovations with NFC Technology

We have a lot of people interested in that idea who can actually help us make it happen. So I'm very excited about events and ticketing. You know, we've got the, like I said, through the NFC chip partner that we're currently using. They're looking into that use case right now. And then there's also the collectibles aspect. So it's like we could tie an NFT into the chip itself that is embedded in the product itself, and that NFT represents the product. So when it comes to phigital items, like you mentioned before, like, we could literally do that and then have the item itself reference itself as like, a digital twin.

Learning and Friendships in the Space

At the time, I didn't know about it and I started learning about it and I found some YouTubers and these guys, you know, were among the first. And now I'm friends with them. But like, they're, you know, they're like, bro, like, I can't get through to him. How's this happening? So it's crazy, dude. I just, that's so tan. Long again, long story short, that is the craziest achievement to date. There have been some others that I was really excited about, like gala games and stuff at the time. I mean, they're massive and so to be able to work with them is really cool. But I think Valuetainment just really blows everything else out of proportion. Like, it's just so massive. And I think it could turn into a lot more similar type of business.

Business Opportunities and Connections

You know, any other kind of like conservative news outlet like Daily Wire. We're in the door with now still early talks, but I mean, we're in the door. They know my stuff. They've been kind of like looking around. They don't have, you know, an opportunity at this point in time. But, you know, it's like there are some angles with that. There's some angles with, you know, so again, there's a bunch like, I've been reaching out on LinkedIn a lot, doing a lot of connecting and just spending time DM's to people cold DM's and stuff. And, and that's been actually making a lot of traction and waves. So anyway, we'll kind of see where it goes. But I think just having the foot in the door of Valuetainment is going to open up so many freaking doors, it's hard to even fathom what could happen after this.

Interaction with the Audience

So if anyone else down there has got a question for the tie project and Tyler, you can just write in the comments box or put your hand up. If you don't want to come up, that's fine. Just put a comment in the comment box and we'll read it out. That's not a problem. I just remind people that this is episode 33. This is being recorded. This is on the Twitter spaces. This will also be on our website. This will also be everywhere where we can actually put it. Tonight's episode is brought to you by Fusion. It's the revolutionary multi-currency NFT exchange, and it's a social finance decentralized application. Adapt on the XRPL and it absolutely rocks.

Acknowledgment of Achievements

I got a question for Tyler, and you know what? Congratulations on getting Patron Bet. David. You know, for those that don't know, that's absolutely huge. It's massive. You'd struggle to go bigger. That's how big it is. It is huge. So well done, Tyler, that, you know, like, hats off to you. 100%. Well done. I haven't even got words to congratulate. Well done, mate. I wanted to ask, how long does it take to produce, some of the merchandise you have, like, on a time scale? and the reason I ask is because I, like, I'm just for my own thought process, you know, if there was, like, an order of, like a thousand dog packs, you know, how long does it take just to make one, you know, or a ring, how long does that take to generally make?

Experience in Manufacturing Challenges

I'm so glad you asked that because that literally happened to me last year. I mean, you say a thousand, probably as, like, a hyperbole, but, like, we literally had 1500. It was actually, I think by the end of the. It was. It was over 2000 tags that we had to make and I didn't have the infrastructure for that. I mean, I was making it one at a time. Like, it was. It would take 20 minutes to do one tag. And I already had customers, like, you know, emailing me, like, where's my stuff? And. And I, you know, I'm like, I'm working on it, I promise. And then I had to spend more time answering fricking emails to get people to get off the ledge, you know, than I did actually making the stuff, and it was a very scary situation.

Adapting and Overcoming Obstacles

I'm not even kidding. Like, I thought I was gonna lose the business and I probably almost did. But again, this is where my kind of background in manufacturing comes to the fore because that was a. That was a real problem that we had to figure out in real time because money was paid for, or like the, you know, the tags were paid for. The people paid their money. They wanted their stuff. We live in an Amazon world where you get your stuff in two days, and I have to. I have to, you know, deliver. Right? So went from making one at a time, one side at a time, to developing a jig that could do 20 at a time, front and back at the same time with the same cycle time as half of one.

Improving Production Efficiency

So if you do the math, I mean, were making them 40 times faster than we started out. And then, you know, he had to dial in some settings, had to kind of get it figured out, right. I mean, it was. It was a huge learning curve, but out of necessity, we had to figure that out. And it was me and my dad that were kind of just brainstorming through that. And I'm really glad that he was able to help me, you know, through that process. And he's helping me right now with the Valuetainment order, actually. He sounds like a very smart man. He is, absolutely. I’ve learned so much from him and so massive respect to my dad.

Sublimated Dog Tags and Production Process

Yeah, 100%. So I, you know, so the sublimated dog tags are dialed at this point. I mean, there's still the polishing process could be optimized. We could probably do that in a palletized way instead of one at a time. But, you know, like, it's so much more profitable than it was before, which also allows us to offer competitive wholesale rates to the Valuetainments of the world. And then, of course, they're going to mark them up probably $20 higher than my retail price because they can. So it's like their margins are going to be like $50 per tag, which is great for them and for me, whatever.

Scaling the Production Workflow

I don't care, as long as they come and buy more. That's cool. So anyway, so to answer your question, I mean, now it's like to make a tag. I mean, we're talking less than ten minutes, like start to finish, including packaging. It used to be a lot longer than that, and it could probably better than that going forward. And then for like, rings and stuff, I mean, we’re pretty efficient with rings, but for engraving, that takes a while. But that's all laser time. I mean, that's not me having to be there and watch it or do anything. It's like you put it in the laser, you set it up and you hit go.

Efficiency and Future Plans

And then you wait an hour or two, depending on how complex the design is. But so there's that eventually, you know, I have some equipment that I want to purchase strategically that will be able to do a lot more. It's like the same laser that I have now for engraving, but it's on a gantry, so we'll be able to do like, pallets of like a hundred, you know, arc plates or 100 dog tags or maybe 200 dog tags or keychains, whatever, and have jigs kind of put in the machine, and then it can engrave all of them at once and take whatever the time is, two, 3 hours to do the whole thing.

Future Production Capabilities

But then you've got all 200 parts done, and then by the time it's done, you take it out and then you have the second pallet is already, you know, filled up with the material and you just slide it back in the machine and after like 30 seconds, and then you hit go again on a second. Selective automation on mass production? Yes, that's. That's where my head's at right now. It's like, okay, how do we, like, if we actually do get fraternities on the scene and they want to buy, you know, bottle opener cards that have their I. Their, you know, letters on them and they want to distribute them to, like, their entire national organization.

Navigating Future Growth and Demand

How are we going to keep up with that? Or, like, if, you know, because the other angle is licensed universities, and, like, there's a company that, you know, you can get licensed for, and they've got, you know, literally like 200 universities on them. Like, some of the biggest names in college football. You know, Alabama, there's Michigan, there's Georgia Tech, which, of course, you know, I went there. So that was the reason I was actually looking. I was trying to find what company licensed Georgia Tech, and then I found out that they also do, like, you know, Clemson and Auburn and all of these big schools.

Opportunities for Expansion

I mean, it's crazy. So it's like if I could get in the door with them and then, you know, just kind of scale horizontally that way. Like, I believe that we could scale to a point where, you know, we just add universities one by one by one until something. This is what I wanted to ask. How are you going to deal with scalability while still operating out of your mum and dad? Have you got a plan to deal with the influx? Yes. So I've really spent a lot of time thinking through these types of problems, and I have a very detailed, seven page long business plan on going out to 2030 and with the acquisition of the company and kind of who's going to acquire it, what we're going to do in the meantime, how we're going to build all kinds of.

Addressing Scalability and Automation

So, and there's so many angles to it. But essentially when it comes to scaling manufacturing, there are a lot of automation aspects that we can implement before I even have to hire the first person. And by the time I do hire the first person, we are going to be just a lean machine, you know, and the standard operating procedures are going to be very easy to learn. You know, you could learn in a day how to do a lot of what we're doing, and it's just a matter of like plugging in and following the instructions, hitting the button. There's going to be a lot of like, you know, software that we're going to have to develop in order to kind of keep up with scale and make sure that the right thing is going to the right person because there's also going to be a lot of customization, which is very important for this business.

Maintaining Quality Amid Expansion

You know, we've got to be able to do custom pieces, one off pieces, etcetera. But we also can't lose it in the storm, the whirlwind of all the shit we're doing. So we've got to have like a really tight QA process. We've got to have manufacturing really dialed in. And I have ideas for all of that. But it's at this point, the problem is not the manufacturing. That's not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is marketing. But I think that with the pivot to B2B and then going to these conferences, et cetera. And there's a conference I'm going to also next month in Atlanta that's B2B that we're tabling at. So I spent money to actually have a table.

Marketing Strategies and Events

And we'll be pitching kind of the B2B offer to a lot of these businesses that are there. It's going to be very like AI focused, e-commerce focused. So we're going to kind of see and then Tech Start will from Techstar P is going to be with me tabling. So that's exciting. I think we're going to try to get him funded, so we'll kind of see where we can go with that. But anyway, I'm stoked, man. I mean, like, I really want to have the manufacturing problems to solve right now. I, it's like things are still a little slow but I can feel it starting to ramp up. We've got like three major orders kind of just like about to go over the finish line that we're about to get going on.

Meeting Deadlines and Future Prospects

You know, Jason needs those cards by the 1 October. So I think, like right when I get back from vaults, I'll be working on those cards. It's going to take a while to do all of them, but it'll be worth it. There'll be a lot of publicity with that, too. And then, you know, I think, like, these business relationships could turn into some real sales as well. And then I'm plugging into this entrepreneurial network in Atlanta again. And a lot of these people are very well connected and love what I'm doing and want to help.

Exploring New Partnerships

And, you know, there's like some cybersecurity angles with arc plate that we're looking at with these multimillion dollar cybersecurity companies that could implement it somehow. And there's all kinds of stuff that I think, like we could just kind of do simultaneously. And then, of course, licensing and stuff too. So there's just, I think we're going to solve the, that regularity problem in short order probably within the next few months. And hopefully that flywheel will just continue to go and then we'll have just regular business. And then we can, like, reinvest in the equipment that I was talking about, like the laser.

Investing in Technology and Equipment

And there's some other things that we can do to, like, automate the polishing process or automate the sanding process or whatever, but it's just money. You know, you need capital to, like, get the right kind of equipment to get out the labor. But then even then, once we exhaust that through just equipment advances, etcetera, there's still obviously going to be a point where I'm going to need to hire. But at that point, I will be so established that it's like, I'm not going to worry about, like, well, what if business dries up and then I can't pay them anymore because that's like a real problem.

Ensuring Business Stability

Like, I can't even pay myself half the time. Right. So, like, once we get past that problem, then, you know, and we're as efficient and lean as possible, then, yeah, I can absolutely bring on somebody and then, like, they can have a really good job that they can be proud of that, you know, they can. Then there's going to be a lot of upward mobility. Like they can learn other aspects of the business and kind of help with different things and so, yeah, I mean, I just, I'm ready. I'm ready for that.

Preparing for Future Growth

Like I want to have those kind of problems and just like, you know, get to that next stage, you know, that next ten x from six to seven figures. And I think that's very within reach. I don't know if it's going to be next year or the year after or what, but like, I think at some point it will and we're just going to have to be mentally prepared for that. So, Tyler, just doing shows like this is going to help you. Your cause no end. So, you know, the more you get your word out, the better.

Engagement with the Community

I'm not sure if you've heard many of our shows before, but what we do is we like when projects come on, we ask them to think of a question that you can put to the next project that come on. It can be crypto related or business related, whatever you fancy. Now, I do believe Wes has got the question from last week, but before he asks you, if you can think of a question that we can ask, that you can put to us tonight, that we can ask for next week.

Excitement for Future Interactions

Yes, I've got the question somewhere. Just 1 minute. You can't. I've got to get the notepad out. Wesley, don't you say you were ready? I was. I was actually born ready. But this one time. No, no, you weren't born ready. You're actually not ready. Okay, well, so while you're getting ready, I've got it. Okay. Yes, go on, Tyler, we.

NFT Giveaway Announcement

Okay, Tyler, we normally give away NFTs to our listeners, so we're gonna give away 15 NFTs related to the Thai project today. And so all you gotta, all the listeners got to do is they just gotta email me. No, excuse me, not email me direct message me at my ex account, my Twitter account. The following secret phrase is going to be XRP army dog tag. So guys, if you want a free NFT for from the Thai or commemorating the Thai project interview, you got a DM me XRP army dog tag.

Clarification on the Giveaway

So that's the secret phrase? Yes. So yes, that's the extra, that's the XRP secret phrase. So if you send that phrase in to my man, you're going to get a free, very special NFT. But, well, the first 15 is the. First 15 that, well, even scarcer. Even better. But these are going to be amazing. If you like cigars, you're going to like this one. Let me tell you.

Question from Previous Guest

But the question was from our previous guest, and he didn't know that he was going to be on this show. He doesn't know that's. You don't know he's going to be on the next show. So we like to ask the question. And the last guy he was on was called Panos. He runs an Odos finance. He runs Amams, I think, in the XRPL. And he had this question. He said, what is your business model? I don't know if you can actually answer this through legal reasons, but what is your business model?

Exploring Business Models

Why are you doing what you're doing? How are you doing it? What token are you using? Are you using the token? And how does any of this bring value to the ecosystem? Quite a complicated question, to be honest. Yeah, there's a lot of parts to that, I guess, to keep it simple, you know, tie project, I kind of to revisit what I originally was kind of saying earlier was like, I wanted to approach this in a different way than I saw a lot of people approaching business from within the crypto space.

Value Proposition and Market Approach

I wanted to kind of run like a traditional company, very web two kind of, you know, but focusing on a web three audience and providing value to them through, like, you know, branded merchandise. Right. So for me, it's kind of like, you know, what drives value for us is that we can rapidly create custom, high end pieces for virtually any brand, any group, any company. And it started out very crypto focused, and now we're branching out into other things, but we're adding, you know, a lot of web three integrations to the store.

Building Community and Ecosystem

So hopefully we will be able to bring new blood into the cryptocurrency world and kind of grow the ecosystem in our own unique way, which I think would add tremendous value. It's like if large brands and companies start using NFTs, for example, for e-commerce products, I just think that'd be a massive win, and that would be very fulfilling for me personally to be able to kind of have a small role in building this community, building this ecosystem in general.

Motivation and Commitment to the Crypto Space

I believe in this stuff. I mean, I, you know, I've been a XRP holder since 2019, and I kind of saw crypto back in, like, 2017. Didn't really know what it was. So I was in college, I had a roommate who, you know, he and I threw in a couple hundred bucks into bitcoin when it was doing its crazy run. And of course we lost all of it. And then I thought it was a scam for a couple years anyway, found my way back. But, you know, here we are.

Lessons Learned and Business Vision

And it's like my thesis for XRP in particular hasn't changed in this entire time. But my timing was off. I thought 2020 was going to just go crazy. And of course, that didn't happen. I still. That's the hard thing about investing, is that the timing aspect. And so for me, I wanted to kind of build a business that could just survive through any bear market or whatever generates some serious cash flow. So that when we do turn around, because I've seen what it's like when you do have some euphoria, and, I mean, I haven't seen the 2017 euphoria from a business standpoint, like being in this space selling merchandise or anything, but I remember what 2021 and 2022 felt like.

Preparing for Future Opportunities

And I think that, you know, if we see a real bull run, like we did, it's 2017, it's like things could just get so absolutely insane that it's like I got to really be prepared for that. And so anyway, that's. Yeah, I think that roundabout answers it, but, you know, essentially just making merch. Making merch for crypto companies and other companies and all kinds of stuff. So, yeah, it's exciting.

Closing Remarks

Tyler, I think Daniel was having issues with his microphone, but he said he's going to go ahead and direct message you after the show. Okay. He wants to talk to you about something. Okay, sounds good. How much you want to do the. Do the goodbyes? Yeah. So, Tyler, have you thought about a question that you would ask Wes, are you ready with a notepad? A question that you would like to ask the next question?

Preparation for Future Shows

1 minute. I was. I promise I was born ready. I've got the paper here. Yes, I'm ready. I think mine will be a little bit simpler than Panos's. So the question I would ask to the next guest is how. How is what you're doing expanding the crypto ecosystem, or does it? I think that's about it. I think we'll keep it there. Do you know what? Sometimes. Yeah, that's a pretty good question.

Gratitude and Future Engagement

Sometimes the short and sweet questions are actually just as more informative as the long one. So that's cool, Tyler. Cool. So, firstly, Tyler, I'd like to thank you for coming on tonight. It's been awesome to have you on. It's awesome to share ideas and see where you're going. We'd love to get you back probably in about six months or a year's time or whatever, see how you're getting on. If you'd love to come back. That'd be great.

Conclusion and Future Commitment

By answering that question that you just gave us. That is a legal requirement now that you've got to tune in next week to hear the answer. You do realize that, don't you? Deal. Great deal. Good man. Well, guys, I mean, guys, I appreciate it so much. I mean, I haven't been, you know, pretty particularly active in spaces at all lately. And, you know, it's just been nose to the grindstone lately, just kind of trying to build out this next phase of the business.

Appreciation for the Audience

So, you know, I appreciate the opportunity. I think it's awesome you guys reached out and wanted to do this and, you know, it's kind of cool sharing some of the updates recently. I think there's just been a lot going on and so, yeah, guys, I appreciate it. I really do. Thank you so much for having me. So Joey Boho, Nana, Kazia, drag crypto Dragon chips us egg listener XRP but soaring fusion like Libre, Wesley and Dan, thank you all very much for tuning in tonight.

Encouragement to Revisit the Conversation

Like I said, these are recorded, so please go back and listen. If you want to listen to that rubbish intro that I did earlier, please feel free. It's there forever. Good night. Thank you for coming. We'll see you next week the same time. Take care.