Mondoggg

Episode 2: Gramajo (@0xGramajo) is joined by Mondoggg (@mondoggg). The co-creater and co-founder of the project Alphadoggg(@alphadoggg_).

Date Recorded: March 14, 2023

Welcome to "Behind The Screen," I'm your host, Gramajo, and in today's episode, we're diving deep with the co-founder and creative mind behind Alpha Dog, Mondoggg. Celebrating almost two years in the heady world of NFTs, Mondoggg's passion for art and technology has led to the soon-to-launch PFP project called Degen Civilization. With a roster of artists like Lip Comarella and Party Skulls, this project aims to bridge the gap between PFP DGens and art collectors, offering a unique token system to claim diverse artworks within the NFT space.
We'll hear Mondoggg's journey from buying Bitcoin to becoming an NFT aficionado, and the lessons he's learned along the way—including the importance of resonating with the projects you invest in. As Alpha Dog gears up to celebrate its one-year anniversary, we reflect on their successes, the influential community they've built, and the fervent criticisms that sometimes challenge the NFT art collections.
We'll also tease apart the buzz around big names like Azuki, punks, and apes in the NFT market, discussing long-term and short-term value plays. And let's not forget about the stunning visuals and emotional resonance behind Alpha Dog's collection—picking just three ETH worth of pieces is no easy task for Mondoggg.
Beyond the pixels and tokens, Mondoggg shares the human side of things—the difficulty of leaving family for NFT conferences and the excitement of meeting community members in person. Strap in as we play a rapid-fire game briefing the fate of NFT projects including Chimpers and Pudgy Penguins, and get an insider's look at the complexities and intention behind the art collection project's future, including pass structures and artist selection.
So, plug in and let's get ready to go "Behind The Screen" with the one and only Mondoggg, where art, passion, and digital community intersect. Stay tuned as we peel away the layers of strategy and heart that fuel the dynamic world of NFTs—right here, right now.

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Links:

Miro for visual follow along
Gramajo
Mondoggg
Alphadoggg

Music by: henriknorstedt

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Show Notes:

00:00 Started buying bitcoin in 2017, sold, regretted.
07:34 Explaining art value and struggles in investment.
13:58 Creating a curated NFT art community.
15:48 Networking led to connections with artists, collectors.
22:27 Simplify release strategy for more artist flexibility.
31:21 Flipped seven captains, bullish on project. Need Reckai.
36:19 Questioning Azuki halumia ramping and market stability.
38:00  Screen Share, can follow on Youtube
42:22 Highly valued collection with prized C3 piece.
46:55 Year 2 Alphadoggg
48:39 Excited for Michael Kuch's detailed, beautiful work.
50:09 Exclus

Transcript

0:05

GMGM. My fellow djians, welcome to another episode of paint shows. I am Gramaho, and today I'm joined by Mondog, the co founder and creator of Alpha Dog. Hope you guys enjoy the episode. Thanks. Cool. Well, thanks again for doing this. Mondog, let's start with you. Who is Mondog? Yeah, I guess I've been in the NFT space now. Mean, I've been used to saying a year and then a year and a half, and now it feels like we're almost two years just times flying by so fast right now. So, yeah, basically I've always been working at a computer. I'm like a web developer by profession. And I kind of started collecting nfds and kind of a mix between art and PFP nfts in July 2021, which feels like forever ago now. So, yeah, I started collecting and trading, kind of really found a love of art, something that people ask me. I had never really bought art other than a few pieces from my house before this, and slowly just kind of got to know a lot of different artists and made a lot of connections in the space. And so we created Alpha dog a year ago now. So in two weeks now, we will be at the one year mark since we launched, which is crazy. So I can't believe we've had our project for as long as we have. And then kind of around that one year mark, we're going to be launching our PFP collection. Degen civilization. So kind of a lot of stuff happening in the early April timeframe. Yeah, no time has flown and definitely time flies in the NFT space. You got started almost over close to two years now. I know for some of the people that probably don't follow you or haven't been following you for a while, I think you said, you've mentioned that when you got into nfts, you kind of just went all in and it's been kind of going crazy since then. You've just had some good wins along the way. What did you mean by kind of going all in? I know you've said it to me, but for other people, just so they know how bullish you were on nfts, like early on. Yeah, I mean, call it bullish, call it crazy, but yeah, I started buying bitcoin the very first time was back in 2017, and then I sold because I didn't really believe in it because I didn't understand it. And then obviously all the kind of shitstorm happened of 2018 and I was so out of the loop that I thought crypto was dead. Like the news kind of suggests whenever there's a big dip, but, yeah, kind of summer of 2019, I got back into it through some friends who were, and still are, huge bitcoin maxis. I started buying bitcoin, and I kind of told a few people this, but my first deposit, I'd saved up a bunch of money and I put in like $3,000, which is the most I could transfer into my exchange. I bought basically $2,900 worth of bitcoin, and then I decided to buy one ETH, which was like $100 at the time. And so in the end, over a few different transfers, I ended up securing a full bitcoin, which is just under around $10,000 and one ETH. And I really wish I had done it the other way and got, like 100 ETH instead of my one bitcoin at the time, but that's a whole nother story, and, yeah, so I was just kind of collecting I'd heard of, but never got into nfTs. I was just kind of slowly accumulating bitcoin over kind of a two year period. And then something kind of clicked, and I kind of, through a network of friends, I kind of found NFTs through Gary. I mean, initially it was through Gary Vee's insane, ape like, punk ape purchase, because I was just thinking of how insane it was that somebody would spend that much money on an NFT. And I thought it was crazy. I thought NFTs were just like Jack Dorsey's tweet and things like that. And then I kind of discovered the space on a Saturday morning, and by the Monday, every dollar I had in crypto and any money that I could invest was buying crypto so I could buy more nfts. There's a light, or like a switch kind of flicked in my head and I just started collecting. Yeah, it's funny how it's like a slippery slope like that, too. I was against NFTs for quite some time as well. And then once it clicked, it clicked hard. And then I was putting almost every single available dollar that I had. Instead of putting it in stocks, I was putting it in. I know. I really wish I had found it two months earlier and then could have gotten into the apes at one e instead of ten, but still, ten was good. Yeah, exactly. In retrospect, ten e. I think anybody would take that deal to this day. Yeah, exactly. Did you get into NBA topshot at all? No, it was before my time. I think the people that I first kind of connected with in the space. All I heard were negative things. And so I never even did my research. I still couldn't even tell you what it is. I've literally never even explored it in any way. I couldn't describe it to somebody. I've just never explored. No, no worries. When I was talking to Aldover, I know he got started in NBA top shot. And that was the big first thing. Other than mooncats, that was the other project that I kind of heard just kind of as a casual person was NBA topshot. And it kind of made sense a little bit in my head, okay, it's like an NFT of a video or gif of an eventful thing during sports, and it's like sports training card and all that. So it kind of all clicked. That wasn't really what got me over the hump for some reason. I think it was something. I think for me it was like des craniums or the craniums as a whole, just seeing Steve Aoki going nuts and now it's kind of like a meme. Steve Aoki. Yeah. It's funny how all it takes is something that you resonate with. It's funny because the initial community that I found, when I kind of found nfTs, there's only one member of that community I talk to anymore. I've kind of disconnected and disassociated from a lot of them. A bunch of them are huge funk proponents. So that was kind of back when kind of the funks were fun and cool before they kind of went a bit the other way. My whole initial community that I had in the NFT space completely kind of disbanded over all that, which is funny. But yeah, it's all about finding something that you resonate with and you understand could have value. And so that's why it's hard to explain to a lot of people. A lot of people get art and they understand why art has value. They don't understand why a DK could go for 100 e and why that would be over other artists. And I can't explain that half the time. But once you find something that does make sense to you, whether it's a collectible art, it's really hard to not want to invest in nfDs. And that's why I've had so much trouble introducing friends to the space, because I've kind of pushed things that I would believe in, which maybe wouldn't have been the right thing for them and or they didn't buy at the right time. And almost nobody that I've got in has actually made money in the space because they're not active enough and they're not buying things, and they just don't understand the space enough. Yeah, that's super true. Yeah. It has to be something that you kind of gravitate towards. I think the closest I got to getting one of my friends into NFTs was, say what you will about the project or whatever, but he's really into Gundam, as am I, like Gumpla and stuff like that. And Meccas was actually the first project. He was willing to just throw money at it because he's like, yeah, this looks like Gundam on Royce. Let's do it. Yeah, I mean, the art previews were really cool. I think they got a lot more shade than they deserved. I get that a lot of them look the same, but I think that happens with anything that's not like a human or animal PFP, just because they're robots. I don't think they deserve the shade that they got, but that's what happens. I think two of my friends that I got into NFTs bought g balls at 0.5 or 0.6, and so they're down pretty bad right now. But again, it's hard to bet against kid eight. I love kid eight's art. I love a lot of the stuff that he does. That collection, it just didn't take off the way that I still think it should deserve to. With the Dirah community and everything. It's just like one of those collections that just doesn't. I don't know, it just didn't do what I expected. So, going back to one of the comments, and we'll kind of continue with some of the other questions, but what was that project for you initially that got you into nfTs? I think you've mentioned kind of like, you need to find something that resonates with you. What was that thing for you? It's funny because for me, it was the board API club. I understood the value, I saw the community I got, why people would have faith in it. But that's the collection that made me want to buy. But funnily enough, it's never been the collection that I was a huge member of the community, for sure. I rocked an eight PFP. I bought my first ape at nine, I sold at 13, I got my second one at ten, and I sold at 85. I held that one for, like, seven months. And obviously, I sold just a few months too early, but I can't complain. And, yeah, there was a lot of ups and downs. I think Lucres was actually one of the turning points for me in the NFT space, where I went from finding these crappy projects that I thought could go from 0.1 to 0.5 or something like that to finding an artist that I knew could be Disney level, like absolutely mass appeal. Nobody doesn't like his art. I think that was one of my real turning points. I bought my first monster for two Eth in. It was either early September or late August. So it was like within a month there was that. And then also the boring Ape Chronicles. So timper's work, I think, like the third nft I ever bought was. It was actually the boring Ape Chronicles number two. And then I bought number one afterwards so I could make sure that I got all the other ones on primary. And those paid off huge, getting access to the genesis and to chimpers and everything involved. So, yeah, it's like the real thing. I'd say everything to do with timpers and everything to do with loucres were kind of the two things that really especially brought me into the art, the art space and kind of discovering artists. That's how I found Shaka. Liquid density. A ton of artists that I've met are all through the monster discord. Yeah, no, it's epic. And it's funny hearing now, I think the podcast is for reflecting on Alpha Dog in the past year and hearing those names. It's easy to see now those connections and how those threads kind of intertwine and how you got to launching Alpha Dog, which we will jump into for sure. Yeah, so I think from there you made a ton of connections and all that. What made you kind of want to launch your own discord server and then kind of then leading up to what made you want to launch into the Alpha Dog project itself. Yeah, it's funny, the whole process of initially launching the discord was just like, I thought it'd be a fun thing to do to get a group of people together and chat about NFTs. When I first set up the discord, it was like November or December. It was of 2021. It was very early on, and we kind of set it up very quickly. We kind of started our tezos artists of the month, trying to kind of introduce people to more artists. And that kind of is what expanded into alpha dog. But the turning point from the discord into creating Alpha dog was really, we saw what proof was doing. We saw that they had their large group of proof pass holders and the value that seemed to be kind of attributed to the past and the alpha and every aspect of being in that discord. And we really felt that the connections that dubirds and I had through the artists that we met in the space, we could do something that was kind of like what proof grails was doing, but like a dedicated pass that would introduce people to artists and would bring the best art in the NFT space into one spot. And in the end, there's now a bunch of different projects that have kind of used the model that we built, and it took us a while to fine tune it. Like me and Lucratte, actually, we were on the phone for 4 hours one day going over how it could work and what wouldn't work with the system. And he was a huge help in creating what is alpha Dog now and the mechanics of it and how it all works, the size. Initially, we were going to have a lot more tokens, like, a lot more passes, and more, like proof, but we really didn't want high editions and we didn't want a lot of raffles, so we figured 100 was the only way we could do that and create the tighter community. So, yeah, there was a lot that happened to kind of create alpha dog and what it is now, but, yeah, the artists that we met along the way were the only reason that we were able to ever do it. Long story short. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. It's so crazy that Des is, like, not saying you're not smart either, but Des is, like, you can see he's really smart, even just like, with the jack or whatever. He's very forward thinking, and just like, some of those mechanics that he comes up with are genius, for sure. So that's awesome to hear. Yeah. Was he the first artist that you signed for? Yeah, he was. And he was the first one. And then it's like, hey, we have, like, we're doing this. And it kind of started off as, like, a name drop, but he also introduced me to a bunch of people, like Tifatron and Marlo and a bunch of other artists, and I reached out to them being like, hey, Des told me to reach out. I've been looking at your work, but I hadn't collected either of them at the time or a number of other artists, and it just kind of built. I sent so many dms to artists, and fortunately, it's one of those chicken or the egg things. I couldn't have gotten to the point where I was able to message all these artists if I didn't have the following that I did, because for one, you just can't reach out to these artists as easily and just send these cold dms. They kind of have to know that you're actually serious and you're like a collector and you're in the space. So everything kind of worked out perfectly per se. I still am blown away by the response from artists, everyone who wanted to be on board, the response from collectors. We were worried about selling out originally and then we couldn't believe how quickly we filled up the spots and how many people wanted to be on board and then those connections of collectors. I had an hour long call with Cribberrat yesterday just to chat through DGen civilization and kind of the overall plan for it and everything there. So everything's coming full circle. Everyone that's been involved as a collector or as an artist is kind of just a really good space with a lot of really good people that like to bring each other up. Let's see. So going back to kind of alpha dog and you cold dming people and all that, what are some of the lessons that you've learned as a team or you individually for year one of alpha dog? I think the initial lesson is don't plan so far ahead because it's hard to pivot. Other collections like ours are already in their 2nd, 3rd version of their season, of their passes. We started as a two year pass because that's what proof did. And we thought it was a good model. We felt it was longer and better. And I mean, honestly, I probably wouldn't even change it now because everything's worked out. We have our collectors, we have everything lined up and the market. Fortunately, it's been a lot harder to reach out to artists when the market's been tough than it was reaching out to artists last February and March. When the market was good, a lot more people were more. I mean, maybe it's because it was a new thing and people hadn't heard, but it's like, I'm really glad that we kind of locked down our year one and most of our year two as early as we did because it's been really hard to approach people in this market. But we also needed to remain flexible so that new artists that kind of became bigger could fit in in some way. So it's kind of been a challenge, kind of making that happen, kind of making both of those things happen. Yeah, totally. Because the space moves so quickly. Like you said, it moves like in one month increments at tops or something like that. And then the meta changes so quickly from there. Yeah. Adding the new artists is hard and no one's dropped out, really, which is kind of great. I would say everyone that you've announced has came through. Yeah, we only had one change and bongdo jumped in. It ended up being perfect timing. Like it was somebody that we wanted to bring in for year three and we were able to bring him in sooner and everything worked out. It's just one of those things where we have a lot of connections with a lot of artists and I would love to be able to do five drops a month and bring in every artist that we know in the space and could do this. But there's also been a huge blessing of spreading it out and just kind of how everything's roadmapped. It might have been nice to maybe not reveal all the artists as early because then we could keep more of a surprise and keep not have too many of our. I mean, I guess it wouldn't matter. It's nice to reveal all of our artists and show that we're planning for the long term. We're here for the long term and we have the support of all these people. Yeah, it's kind of like a catch 22. If you don't reveal too much, then people don't see that work that you're putting in behind the scenes. But then you also kind of lose some of that anticipation or hyper speculation almost. Yeah. It's like when we release something new, there's a lot of hype and there's more secondary on tags and people want to get in and then we just continue and fulfill our roadmap. But the hype isn't there because we're just doing what we said we were going to do. It's like keep it simple and just keep delivering and don't overcomplicate it. And I've heard such good things from our collectors and people that are happy to collect the art. There's not a lot of speculation because we've promised and we've delivered exactly what we promised. So we're just continuing to deliver on that and just keep things simple. And that's kind of what we're focusing on. We're always here, we're always building, but we're not going to promise a million things and deliver half of them. We're going to lay out exactly what we're going to do and we're going to do it. Yeah, agreed. I know you mentioned that there's other projects now that are very similar, and I think even the proof team doubled down on kind of their original vision on recent news. But what are some of those kind of lessons that maybe other projects have done or like things that other projects have done where they've had shorter season cycles or whatever. Is there anything that you maybe might incorporate into alpha dog for potential year three or just general changes? In a sense, yeah. I think initially we know that after the first two years, we're going to do, like, one year passes. We're not going to do the two years again. We're just going to keep it one year at a time. It makes more sense. And we can keep things kind of more confined, and then we might switch things up and maybe not do the same, keep our signature, but then maybe take away the limited and do a limited a bit differently. Like maybe not have everything announced, have more random and sporadic drops, and just kind of keep a little bit more versatility that we don't have right now. And again, it's like both ways work well, and we've had a lot of success and incredible artists through kind of both the signature and the limited. I think the biggest thing that we want to make sure is that when we have an opportunity to bring in an artist, we need to be able to, because right now, if we wanted to drop a piece by an artist that came to us, we can't. We don't have room to do that in our current setup. So I think just leaving a little bit more room to kind of make some changes will be key for us for year three. Yeah. Awesome. Now, I appreciate that insight. There's a lot to go. There's a lot that happens, managing such a kind of project like this. So appreciate that. What has been the most kind of rewarding aspect for you of alpha dog this past year? I mean, definitely the community. I was talking to Kippurat about it yesterday, but it's like the best kept secret of Alpha Dog is the community. It's a very close group of people. Everyone says their community is the best, but it's like you don't know what it's like in discord until you actually have a dog tag. And getting just very regular messages from our holders, like how happy they are. Even people that aren't as frequently in discord or around just hearing from people that they're very happy with the curation, very happy with. Obviously, the artists have gone above and beyond and delivered incredible, incredible work. But it's a mix of whether we're sharing new projects or finding new artists or even seeing some of our collectors become artists. Like t three is like he's really honed his skill and been sharing a bunch of stuff and he's kind of become an artist. There's just a lot that's happened and I'd say the most rewarding has just been the people. And that's kind of as corny as it is. That's what it's all about. No, it's not corny, man. I know what you mean, though. It sounds super corny when you say it out loud and all that. But for sure the community's been really good. I mean, I think I got to meet Og in person. Yeah, I'm excited to meet OG. I'm meeting him in two months. Oh, man, that's awesome. Are you coming out to California? No, he's coming to run a spartan race with me and the birds. So that'll be fun. Oh, epic, man. Yeah, I'm very excited. We've been chatting about our training and all that over the last few months, kind of getting ready for it and yeah, I'm really excited. And it's just somebody that I'm really excited to meet. Being in Canada, having two young kids, I haven't gone to any of the NFT conferences or met really anybody except for the birds in person. So I'm very excited. To even just meet one more person is going to be fun. I know what you mean, man. I'm on that struggle. I wanted to go to NFT NYC pretty badly, but one day I think my kid will be like, yeah, exactly. My kid will be like less than four months. And that just seems wrong. I know. That's how I feel. It's like I have like five month old and two year old and leaving my wife with those two so I can go to an NFT conference. It's hard to justify. It'll be easier even as they get a little bit older. Maybe not this spring, but maybe in the fall just to have a little bit more of a justification. And with Degen civilization, we're going to have more collectors there than we would with our 100 dog take holders now. So there's definitely going to be more to do as well. Yeah, one day we'll go, we'll meet in person. We'll get a beer. Yeah, definitely. I want to hear the story on. I know you've mentioned it a little bit to me before, kind of via dms on Discord, but would love to kind of get the story on Terrell Jones and the one year, especially since we're approaching it, pretty stoked to see what he has in store for us. But how did you end up one selecting the one year reward artist. And how did you even nail that? I mean, it's going to be the most boring story ever. We're following along really closely. We're trying to figure out somebody that would be kind of really coming up and kind of peak popularity at that time. And he happened to follow me on Twitter and I sent him a message and he said, sure. He said, that sounds awesome. That's the exciting story. There's not that much to it. His work is incredible. His followers, his collectors are diehard. And we couldn't be happier to have Terrell as our twelve month reward drop. It's going to be amazing. With that said, then, who was the hardest person to get a hold of then? There's a bunch of people that have just not gotten back to me. We're still waiting for x copy. Oh, I know there's been a lot of yeses and there's been a lot of no's and there's been a lot of just like no responses. I mean, the hardest person to get a hold of that we got. Let me think on that. I'm taking a look at the calendar just because I'll be able to answer more easily that way. Gy was tough, but more just because it was a longer process. He was very supportive from the get go. So that was one of our big announcements initially that we were going to have Gy. So that was awesome. Yeah. And it's not a reflection on them. They're probably super busy and they probably get a ton of messages too. Yeah. Macbeth was probably the most difficult, to be honest, just because there was no way to reach out and I needed to get him to follow me before I could message him. And then it was a long process of back and forth where he wasn't available to chat and was traveling and kind of we were was in terms of from the time that I first tried to reach out until we kind of got a yes, definitely. Macbeth was definitely that. And I was really happy when you agreed to not only do one drop but to do two. Yeah, seriously, that piece is super awesome, too. And that oe was on point. Yeah, no kidding. That's like one of one quality, I would say. Yeah, exactly. I'm excited to see his next drop, he said, is his most complicated one. It's like the lady on the train. It looks incredible and it's for cellmates that are staked. They're going to have the ability to bid, I think, on it. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to work, but it looks amazing. You'll be the first person I play this game with. But I'm calling it, like the flip vault burn, which is kind of like the fuck Mary kill game. So I'm going to give you three projects. You're going to tell me which one you want to flip, which one you want to vault, and which one you want to burn. Okay, no disrespect to the projects. We're just trying to have one. Chimpers, rec guys and captains. Yes. This is a really tough one because I've had both. I have to go with vault. It's so difficult because I really believe in all these projects. And chimpers is my long term vault. I have 20 of them. I love my chimpers. They're staked. I recently flipped, like, seven captains, but I'm really bullish on them and I think they're going to be an incredible project. I just saw an opportunity and I flipped a bunch of them from when they really pumped closer to six e. I still wish I had a few of them, but I got kind of addicted to taking profits and I sold all of them. So the only one I don't have, and it's been the longest since I've had, is Reckai. I would love to grab a few. I just don't have any right now, so I think this is the hardest one for me, but, yeah, I mean, I guess I would have to say burn for red guy, but I would vault it. It's like. I don't know. These three are really tough. There isn't one that I don't think will do really well long term. They're all amazing for their own reasons. Yeah, this was definitely the hardest one. Out of all of them. I think I tried going for someone that were kind of like layups, but this one was definitely. I was like, damn, actually, these are. Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah. All right, so the next was MFRs pudgy penguins. That's a shout out to the birds. And. I'm like, I'm still kind of salty with sartoshi just kind of doing the oe and dipping. So I've been kind of against them since then. So I guess that's an easy vern pudgy penguins. I've never held. I was always kind of not overly supportive of Cole, and I have a lot of trouble disassociating them. But obviously the birds loves them and I think they'll do really well. So they're probably my vault. And then creeps. I think creeps could do really big things, but I think they've been way too quiet for way too long. I held two creeps and a ton of assets for like a year, and when seed phrase bought a ton of them and everything pumped, I sold everything. And I still think they could do well and they could deliver. But I really don't like when projects have postponed their deliverables because of the market. We were all ready to mint the new creeps collection. Midsummer, everything was ready for it, and then they just kind of went quiet. And I really don't support that. Whatever reasons you have, I'm just not a huge fan. I think they could do well, but, yeah, so I guess that's my flip. Yeah. And then the last one, the big ones. And it doesn't have to be burned, by the way. It could be know you got hacked. Someone took it. We're not trying to disrespect projects. I hear it's more just like you lost it. So this one, because obviously nobody's going to be burning in either of these. But the big ones, punks, ByC and Azuki's, which one are you flipping, vaulting, and losing via. Like I always say, this is also really tough. I think Azuki over the next two years will gain more as a percentage than the other ones just because they're way undervalued right now. Azuki should be 30 to 50 eve. Everything that they deliver is always top notch. That's one that I wholeheartedly believe in. Punks and apes. I view them very similarly mine, except I view punks as being the three to ten year play and apes being the one to three year play. All blue chips, though, for sure. All blue chips. I think if I could only have one of them in my wallet and I couldn't sell it for like, ten years punk. 100% my one year play, Azuki, for sure. And then obviously apes. You can't go wrong with apes. I sold a significant amount of my PFP collection. I'm in apecoin right now for my way of getting exposure with the yield, so I'm heavily bullish on all of them. That's also just a really tough one. I don't even have a good answer for that one. No. Yeah, no worries, man. I don't have any of them, so I have zero skin in the game, obviously. I think for me, the one that's been really interesting has been. I mean, I definitely am bullish on punks and kind of the newer ones, I would say not like one of the older projects, Azuki is definitely. I'm very excited for them. One of the ones. The real question for Azuki for me is when are they going to start their halumia ramping? When is more going to happen? Because with beans at Azuki, it's kind of the market, especially with blurbidding going down. And if it does go down, depending on kind of what the next batch of rewards are, how will they hold up until they deliver more? I know they have a ton going on. It's just a question of when. Punks are basically a stable coin and apes just move around randomly. Based on news, they go between 60 and 80 for very quickly minus now with blur. So if I could only have one right now, I'd probably choose an ape for the short term, but I would move into a punk within two or three years. Yeah, punks are awesome. It was great to see Mooncat get that one too. Yeah, I was really happy to see him get the hoodie. That's the ultimate grail. It's like the Grail of the Grails. Yeah, like the hoodie punk. I don't see anything. I'd rather have a hoodie punk, I guess. Maybe not over a zombie punk, but there's just something about hoodies. Yeah, people love their hoodies right now. It's still in meta for sure. Nobody's gotten rid of it or don't like it. So thanks for playing that game with me. I know it's hard. I made that one kind of hard. I appreciate that. So going back to kind of alpha dog, let's see, I'm going to share my screen real quick. All right, little quick commercial break here. I want to thank today's sponsor, Terra Luna. No, I'm just kidding. We don't have sponsors here. If you're listening through a podcasting app, you could check out the visuals on YouTube. I also want to take a quick moment to talk to you guys about DGen's agreement. This podcast does not run on Rigby, rest in peace. So consider pressing subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. It helps out in bringing more content to you all. Thanks. We will also be giving away a bitter pep which gets you whitelist access to Degen civilization. So go check out the YouTube video. Now back to the show. Let me know if you could see it. Yep. Awesome. So, yeah, I think looking back kind of at this collection and your website definitely has, I've been really digging the visuals. Hopefully people get to see the visuals that you guys have been putting in. I think you said CFW has been CFW. Yeah, he's crushing it. Yeah, absolutely. Doing well. And I think I've seen you guys been spending more time kind of with the visuals, which is great. Makes it feel extremely professional. Not that it wasn't before, but I don't know, some people are pretty visual. Yeah, it's something like, I sent a message to CFW like a month or two ago, and I was like, hey, we need better visuals. We need more stuff for tweeting and just more stuff to keep on brand and keep things going. And he definitely delivered with our new monthly graphic and then obviously our year two graphic. Everything's coming together. And CFW is just an amazing person. And CFW did the logo. So he did the branding, the logo, the actual dog tag. We commissioned him to make that. What we're looking at right now with the calendar. Yeah, he did. Everything that you visually see about Alpha Dog was created by him. Yeah, no, it's really good stuff. Yeah. So the next kind of similar game, too. A little bit or a little different, but mostly specific to alpha dog. And it's just to see, obviously, all these are great pieces here. If you had three eth, which of these pieces are you minting? Assuming the whole collection is available to you, you know what they look like, and it's at off a dog price. Okay, so I'm minting at primary prices. Okay, that's interesting. You're minting at primary. Exactly. And the whole thing is available to you. You know what they look like. You can even go with the rewards too, if you want. No worries. But I just kind of want to know which are your top three favorites or which ones kind of speak to you the most. I mean, definitely Ryan Talbot. That piece is just phenomenal. It's, like, emotional for. He took a really big break when he was making it because his dog Winston passed away, and that was really difficult for him. So that emotional aspect of that. And that piece is just a very special piece. My biggest NFT purchase in art was my one of one by Ryan Talbot. Everything he does has, like, a special place for me. So that's definitely there. Super talented, too. That oe as well bounces. And then announcing today that there will be a burn for it, which is awesome. Yeah. So, yeah, that tempers and Jake's piece are both. I love those, man. They're all so good. It's honestly so difficult. The artists have really gone above and beyond on these and with tempers doing the game based on kind of another version, a similar version of that piece. And then Jake's here with kind of the different, the squiggle and kind of the x copy. There's a lot of Degen aspects to it. Yeah. Jake's piece is definitely one of my favorites, I'd say. Yeah, I think it's the most expensive right now in the collection, like on secondary, which makes sense. That or the Des. And then 80. 80 his cerberus and that whole month with what is real Cerberus and then Pearl tune. They're all absolutely love those. It would be hard to only get three pieces on primary. There's so many incredible pieces in this collection, like c three, which I think is a great price for a c three, period. I bought a piece in secondary last week because I really wanted the c three. Yeah, this is my first c three. And, yeah, definitely a good price, like you said, for a c three on e two and everything. Yeah. Because all my other c three is only on. Looks rare because it's not available on openC. So I wonder if openc knew that he was the artist, if they would take it down. I don't know if they could because we minted it, but that's just something. It must be one of the only c three pieces you can get on opensea. Yeah, it's kind of nuts that it's unfortunate that that's how they're approaching it. It's crazy. The CFW, I love the detail in that piece is just phenomenal. Like Tifatron's piece. That was like her second, I think, animated piece she'd done at the time, and now she's really incorporated into her style. I feel like every time we get a new piece from an artist, we're like, wow, that's like our new favorite piece in the collection. And then it's like we get another one. We're like, holy crap, that's our new favorite piece. I can't wait to see the Lewis Pontz on Friday. I'm not sure when we're going to get it, but I'm very, very excited for that one. That's going to be insane. I've been looking forward to that one. But I fully agree with you on all these being absolutely amazing. Even the quality one, super sneaky. Yeah, it's crazy. But even the quality of the Rombrandt ones, the original file sizes of those, they're meant to be printed in insanely large format. They're incredibly detailed paintings. Yeah, you could tell. Actually, I had to resize some of these just to make it work. Yeah, it's crazy. I had to decompress them and all that because there was too much gas in all of them. Yeah, it's wild. And they're all different formats. Different. It's really cool seeing the artists deliver such a wide variety of pieces in these collections. They're coming together. I remember when we minted the first piece, like the alpha walk. When that piece was there, I was like, wow, I wonder what this collection is going to look like in a year. And I love looking through the collection. And Brandon Mighty had only done a few super air drops on ETh. It was mostly on Tez. And now he's really kind of gaining popularity with his new death and the cat collection. I forget what it's called, but Brandon Mighty is really kind of like blowing up popularity on ETh, which is really good to see. And that piece is incredible. Yeah, that piece is great. He's written some really good children's books. Some of my kids favorite ones are by him. Oh, no way. I would recommend ordering some when your kid's a bit older and you're going to be reading stories. Yeah, I need to check that out then. Yeah, I'm building up a collection of kids books right now in Spanish and. English for my kids. You'll get a lot. And you read the same ones every night. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Thanks. Appreciate you playing that as well with me. And. No, it is crazy. Just I look at this constantly just to. Yeah. Thanks for putting this together. Yeah, no, not a problem. I mean, I like your guys'visual with the names and all that, but sometimes people want to see the thing itself. So I just been updating this on the side just for those that want to see it visually. They can see it visually as well, all in one go. And it has all the links, so it takes them to the right place and all that. Yeah. Let's jump back into this year two. Let's talk about year two. So for year two, obviously, year one, we're approaching the end, and I think I'm going to be doing a giveaway for Bitterbep, which has some implications with Dejian's civilization, which we'll jump into in a second. But looking at year two, year two is already looking absolutely crazy and fancy. Yeah, it is crazy. I was just reading through it all just to get ready for this, and I'm like, wow, I forgot how good the lineup is. Yeah. I did not know Jeremy Booth was. I mean, I think I did. I know, but it's crazy when you actually start writing it down or when. You put it down when we got him for this, he was not a large enough. He wouldn't have been a signature at that time. That's how much things have changed for Jeremy Booth since then. Yeah. And he's blown up now. Blown up. And we've been kind of discussing. That's going to be an insane limited. Drop that and rip cash. Oh, boy. Oh, my God. I've had so many people message me, asking me how we can rig the ripcash for them, and I just tell them no. And people suggesting things and it's like, no, we can't change the mechanics right now. It's luck of the draw. Oh, my God. Yeah. Kev bought right there. I'm kidding. Yeah. Now I'm kidding. Kev bot, if he is listening to this at some point. Yeah. No, this is an insane lineup for like, again, you don't have to pick favorites, but which ones are you kind of excited for? I'd say. Michael Kuch is going to be. I think that's how you say he's. I love his work. The detail, the time it takes to make. Not that that is necessarily a huge factor, but the amount of work that goes into his pieces, I'm very, very excited for that one. His recent auction, I believe it was on Salvi's, was just an absolutely beautiful piece. And we've chatted a fair bit over the last few months about kind of his process and what goes into his work. And that's one I'm very, very excited about. King Xerox, Camobus. There's some huge pieces that's just in the signature. Like Ryan Anderson, his work is always incredible. Gold cat, alien queen. That's going to be a phenomenal piece. There's only three pieces to hold to get that one. And Jack Nft is going to be huge. Tim Maxwell's work is phenomenal, like the detail. And then obviously, like, that's a no brainer. It's going to be an incredible piece and kind of going more on the limited. Dominic G. He's become a huge part of the discord since we kind of brought him in as an artist. And I love the detail in his work. I have a one on one on super rare. Very excited for that. I think it goes without saying rip cash is going to be insane. Yeah. I think we're not going to be able to do the on chain because that's kind of reserved for his mint on his contract, but it'll still be a rip cash and it'll be amazing. Jeremy Booth. There's not a single name on this list of artists that I'm not. Lip Comarella. His work, his original SR drops were some of the first pieces that when I first saw, like, when I was kind of discovering nfts, I was through his work, I was introduced to him through Shad, who has become a huge and very kind of active collector in the group as well as muju. Shad has been really good for finding new artists and just being a good sounding board for who we should include or who we should bring in and so on. Is crazy. Yeah. Oh, it's insane. And he doesn't sell anything. He just buys. It's insane. Yeah, no, it's nuts. It's funny because I went down, I forget I was buying some one on one recently, and previous owners, or all time high, kind of like, buyer was shat. And I was like, okay, well, if Shad bought it, I'm definitely in good company. Oh, yeah. It's like every artist I find, I'm like, oh, this is a cool artist. I wonder who else collects. Always chat, he says, name's always there. One of the early buyers, I'm like, okay, yeah, exactly. I'm super stoked for totally going to butcher this name. Nicholas Sassun. Yeah, that's going to be really cool. That and pixel fool were too. Like, they're going to be really cool pieces. Nicholas Sassoon is one that debirds was really big on, and he's one of the artists I haven't actually spoken to at all. It's always been through. I'm. I'm very excited for, like, a few of our collectors are huge fans of his work and pixel fool, so it's like a style that we didn't see at all in year one, so I'm really excited to see that. And Mendez. Mendez, he's another artist that has just exploded in popularity over the last few months. I think his open edition is, like, what people dream of their open edition being when they kind of release theirs. And his burr mechanics have been very thoughtful. Every piece has been very well done. Yeah. And we have our first photographer, too, this year. Yeah, that'll be another really cool one. There's a lot to line up. Yeah, exactly. I'm really excited about it. Yeah. And it's kind of funny, like, you know, you've locked in some of these artists, and then they just kind of blow up after they've already been locked in. So, like, mendez. Mendez definitely has come into his own. Lacon is definitely getting bigger. It's like some of these, you have to wonder where they'll be in a year when goldcat drops in a year in January. I think that's going to be one of the most sought after signature drops at the time. I'm incredibly bullish on Goldcat, and it's just one of those ones very, very excited about. Yeah. Before we kind of go jump into the next section for Gray Legion, do you see them going back in, in year three? Yeah, definitely. That's the one that we unfortunately had to replace. But yeah, I'm a huge fan of her work and if she's open, I would be very happy to work together in year three for sure. Awesome. Yeah. So let's kind of jump into this new kind of project that you guys are launching. I think you described it as a PFP, but what is Djen civilization? How did it come about? Yeah, basically we started working on Degen civilization back in September, was kind of when we started on the art and kind of the planning for it. So the general kind of overarchy, I guess overarchy is probably the wrong term, but the holistic view of it all is we're kind of finding a way to bring together the typical PFP DGens and the art collectors and finding a way to kind of bring a benefit and exposure for both. So we're going to be next week, we're kind of sharing a lot more about the actual project and how everything's going to work. But in, in short, you'll be able to, like, you'll. You'll be earning a certain type of tokens for holding your degens and you'll be able to use those for claiming really cool art and from different artists across the NFT space and other Talbot did. She has two attributes in the collection I'm really excited to share more. The art is incredible, the detail that party skulls has gone to. We have a wide variety of hoodies and onesies, and he had to rework all the mouths and the eyes so that they could line up accordingly and work with those. So there's a whole. It's like the amount that has gone in to this collection is insane and we're very excited to share it. But yeah, we're really fine tuning and that's what I was talking to Cribberat about. But we're fine tuning to make sure that whether you have one degen or you have a hundred, you'll be able to take part in all the drops that we're doing and have a chance at winning or obtaining the art that we're going to be minting, so it's going to be a lot of fun and I'm excited to kind of share more as we get closer to our planned early April launch. Yeah, no, this sneak peek got me kind of excited with Ryan and having an attribute, and then it made me think about how I'm sure you have other artists involved as well, and that's exciting. And I think you mentioned party schools, so how did that kind of come about? Did you reach out to party schools or how did that kind of. Mean? I've known party skulls for a while, like debirds has as well, and his style is when we were thinking about what we wanted to create kind of to do, like the, I mean, everyone loves frogs, everyone loves. It's like the DJ and mascot. And we wanted to just do something that we wanted an artist to kind of run with it, but we wanted somebody that would put a lot of care into it as well. And we knew party skulls would be a good fit. We approached him and asked if he would make a mockup and go from there and he made two and we literally were like, perfect. No revisions. That's our model. Let's go. And then we've just been kind of creating attributes. Like, in half an hour we're going to do another call and we basically go through all the attributes and the rarity, and we're discussing rarity and everything. So he's been incredible. I'll send you some full previews after this so you can see what it looks like. We're really excited. Yeah, no, definitely. I'm pretty excited about it. And there's probably a lot of lessons, too, that you guys have picked up along the way from other PFP projects or other projects as a whole. And I fully trust kind of you guys both have the right heads on you to basically make it work. Our big thing is we're not going to over promise a huge roadmap that we can't deliver on. Everything that we say we're going to do, we're going to do immediately. We're not going to promise something that's coming in six months. Only things that we're going to announce are going to start right away. So we're going to keep it simple and we're just going to deliver and that's what we've always done. So yeah, it's going to be a lot different selling like 4200 nfts at a low mint price versus 100 dog tags at two e. But I know we can do it and I think the primary ends up being roughly similar, which is pretty funny. We're up for the challenge of minting 4200 of these out. It's a fantastic number too. Yeah, magical number. So what's kind of the best way to get the whitelist? Or is there a whitelist or how are you able to get dj and civilization? Yeah, we're doing it a few different ways. So if you have a dog tag, you will get five free mints, plus you'll be whitelisted for five paid mints. And all whitelists are discounted to public. So we haven't firmed up on the exact price, but it will be well below 0.1. So yeah, we're keeping it. Our main focus is selling out, not making a huge amount on primary. We want collectors, we want to bring in as many collectors as we can. So dog tags are the best way to get ten if you have a bidder bep, which is the token that we gave out for free to everyone who bid on our final dog tag, the one that went unclaimed a year ago, you will be whitelisted for two mints. So that's a great way to get whitelisted for two mints. And then we have a bunch of partners that we're going to be launching next week. So you'll be seeing DGEn civilization throughout, multiple partners, including chimpers, ghosts and a bunch of other discords. So be prepared for that. So yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun and we've really been trying to push the hype cycle as close to mint as possible and just kind of push it in the final two weeks as much as possible. We're just gearing up. It's fast approaching. Yeah, it's coming up real quickly and I know that we're also kind of at an hour, but I do have a couple quick ones if you still can hang around. Yeah, no worries. As long as my airpods. Okay. I know they gave me the little ding that they're low on battery, but I think they're fine for now. Okay, cool. Yeah, so thanks for kind of giving that breakdown on how to get the wireless and all that. Definitely not going to hold you to the numbers or the price or anything of that nature. I know you guys are still figuring that out long term in the server. How do you see the breakdown then? Do you see the breakdown in terms of participating in either server raffles or whatever there is participating on maybe unclaimed pieces or whatever? Do you see it as dog tags at the top and then Djen civilization kind of as like the second wider net? Or does the bitter bep still kind. Of. Go above that? Or are you still kind of trying to figure that out all out? We'll probably be switching. I hadn't really given a ton of thought to bitterbap after this mint. I think it'll probably break down into like. I think anyone who's been in the proof discord will be very similar. The dog tags will have their own, still have their own section, their own priority. Everything alpha dog will always be prioritized to them. Everything Degen civilization will be prioritized to dgen civilization. So if you're a degen civilization holder, I wouldn't expect to get leftover alpha dog drops. Those are still going to be prioritized for alpha dog holders, at least in my initial thinking. Because we always want to make sure our goal is to keep things separate. There will be lots of fun things available for Degen civilization holders and everyone will be prioritized in their own way. Yeah. Okay. The alpha dog extra role will be probably replaced with the degenerate holder because we just don't want too many roles, too much complexity in the server. It doesn't make sense. Yeah, agreed. You're already handling the full set holder, I'm sure. That one, I think you said you have to list out every single token every single time. Yeah, initially it didn't work. Now it does, but yeah, initially it didn't work. I thought it was working properly, but it was not. Yeah. Will dgen civilization hit any public like, let's just say you lived under a rock. Aren't a part of these communities? No. Bitter, just, yeah, you're in Hawaii without Internet and you show up and will it actually hit public like some number? Yes. So our current plan is to release public alongside whitelist at a slightly higher price. So you'll get a discount if you're whitelisted. And you'll be encouraged to mint in the shorter whitelist period to get your discount and to get your mints. Makes sense. We will be having public because even though it's only a 4200 collection, we want to make sure that there is public availability for those who want it. Awesome. Yeah. And definitely selling out will always be the. Yeah, selling out is the hardest thing in this market. And we want to make sure every pre mint could have different rates of success of people that actually mint. And we can't trust that 100% of winners are going to mint. But we also don't want to heavily overalllocate. So we're finding a good balance of not. Of limiting the total number of whitelist while allowing sub public as well. We're figuring out our launch as best we can and we're hoping that the market does well over the next two weeks or three weeks leading up to it. Yeah. Does that kind of worry you? A bit like launching? Like you mentioned earlier, some artists kind of, I won't say disappeared Reno, but definitely aren't dropping in the middle of the bear and all that. Does that concern you, driving a project like this? Kind of, with everything that's happening today? Well, I mean, it looks like the next few weeks could be very positive for crypto. And like we saw what happened in January, these pumps can come out of nowhere. The art is solid, the roadmap is simple but solid. We're builders that have been around. The mint price will be low, the supply is low. We're doing everything that we feel is right to make sure that we have the best success in minting out, even in this market. Obviously, I couldn't be more nervous because it's. The most important thing is selling out. No matter how good your project is, if you don't sell out, you're dead in the water. And we want to deliver for our holders. So we're doing everything we can to make sure that we are going to sell out. Yeah. And this is ERC 77 two one. Right? Yes. Okay, cool. So they're going to be on blur. They will be. And, yeah, they will be on blur. We should hopefully see a lot of trading and. Yeah, it's going to be fun. I'm getting anxious. No, I bet, man. Yeah. Let's see. I think that's actually all I had. Appreciate you taking the time, man. Anytime. Bye.