Jax: 0:00

MemeCon has given those pseudo-anonymous people a reason to come out of the shadows from Twitter and be able to actually come and meet people in real life.

Joeri: 0:08

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3CMO Stories podcast. My name is Yuri Bilas and I'm your podcast host, and today I'm here together with Jax.

Jax: 0:18

Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me on.

Joeri: 0:20

Yeah, thank you for having me as a speaker yesterday on MemeCon. Actually, guys, we are in Lisbon and actually a great, lovely building here. But before we dive into the conversation with Jax, let me tell you a bit about the panel that took place on Wednesday, was called MemeLore, and actually I was there as the official ambassador for Rio and RioChan. I was joined on the panel by Jerry from the Solana Strategic Reserve, guilherme from Brave and AJ from Shitcoin, and the moderator of the panel was Vamp, and so we dove into meme culture and Web3 storytelling. And then, of course, the question came what is Riochan? What is the story behind Riochan? Where did the idea come from?

Joeri: 1:22

Well, riochan's lore is inspired by the samurai spirit of Japan courage, honor and compassion. As part of the Rio's ecosystem, they wanted to create a meme coin that fights for users, blending the fun of memes with AI-powered protection, memes with AI powered protection. Real Chen is a true fighter in the crypto space, defending users with tools like scan detection and portfolio optimization. So a meme coin with utility. And now let's go back to the conversation with Jax. Jax, what are the vibes? If you would describe MemeCon to someone who has never been, how would you describe it?

Jax: 2:09

Well, I would describe MemeCon as an experience like no other in Web3. I believe that the Web3 space for conferences has they've been trying every conference has been trying to find something different for people to come to. So I believe meme con is like nothing else in the crypto space when it comes to in real life events. Yeah, and I think that's something that's missing is this how can I explain it?

Jax: 2:35

quirkiness yeah I was gonna say just different type of experience, like with lots of different characters. The meme coin space in itself is very interesting, funny, a bit wild, yeah, crazy. You don't know really what to expect every single day. Yeah, and I believe the meme con is a bit like that. You should come to meme con without knowing what to expect, who you're gonna meet. Yeah, just have fun. That's pretty much the whole the whole. Thing yeah, just have fun, yeah, people that are coming here.

Joeri: 3:06

Do you see them? They have meme coins. They are already a long time in the space. Or do you see also a lot of newcomers, or not?

Jax: 3:15

I would say that the majority of people that have been at meme con for the last year have been ogs from within the space. So people that have been OGs from within the space, so people that have been around crypto for a long time I think actually a lot of us as well felt probably a bit like on the disenfranchised side from Web3, maybe we had some bad experiences in crypto.

Jax: 3:38

Maybe, some of us got rugged, lost money, maybe some of us just wanted to find a tribe of people that really like. So, if you look at crypto itself from twitter and all these other places, where you have a lot of people that are not docs, so they're pseudo anonymous yeah, you make friends, but it's not in the same way of meeting people in real life, and I think mean con has given those pseudo anonymous people a reason to come out of the shadows from twitter and be able to actually come and meet people in real life, and that's really powerful as well getting away from the computer screens and actually coming to meet people and what you find, I think, is that a lot of us are very similar. Once you come to yeah, con, then you're like like, these are people that then become like friends for almost for us as well, which is great.

Joeri: 4:24

Yeah, yeah, and meeting people in real life, it makes all the difference, and, for sure, if you know them online you have a certain idea of how they would look like, how they would be, and then you get to meet them and then it's interesting that I now can attach a name or like a meme or to a person.

Jax: 4:46

And it all makes sense. What is really really interesting story yesterday so we had one of our like community members we've been in contact with for a year called dump star who's with hoba, yeah, and he is a big character and our artist for a meme corner guy called dude as well. It was really interesting because they're so similar in so many ways. They still haven't met each other. Dude couldn't, unfortunately, be here this time, but if they got to, they've been working together as well for a year, but if they got to meet in real life, it would have been absolutely chaos yesterday. So it was funny to see like they're so similar, but they've never met each other. And I think that's what I'm pointing out is that we have all of these characters in crypto who have been in pseudo anonymous on Twitter and you're vibing, you like, really like each other, but then you haven't ever got the chance to meet people in real life. And, yeah, this is the cool bit, where you get to bring those type of people together, which is cool.

Joeri: 5:37

And yeah, that actually if you can do that, bringing those people together, making connections happen, doing a kind of networking Do you see this happening a lot in them? I would say the meme space Is it MemeCoin? Is it the first conference I ever heard that's like that? Are there others?

Jax: 5:58

So NFC are trying to create like a festival of web technology. So they're trying to bring lots of different places from the crypto industry, like memes, nfts, ai, all together and I believe they're trying to, they're giving it a good go, but I still don't think it reflects the meme coin in space, because memes are like a total different beast in my opinion. It's really wild, wild really out there and there's nothing still that I don't think represents meme coins. And that's what we've been trying to do with julian, who came into the picture as well is try to replicate the craziness, the trenches, but within an actual conference in real life. So it's bringing all of that chaotic, it's kind of schizo energy and bringing it to a conference in real life, and that's what we're trying to do. I don't believe it's been done yet. We're still not there. We're probably 50% of the way.

Joeri: 6:55

Yeah, but you're building and you're feeling the energy. What makes you the most excited about doing a conference like this? Being here, seeing the people around, what is yeah?

Jax: 7:07

So the thing that I've been most happy about is that seeing people build relationships and seeing people make friends, yeah. So when we did the first MemeCon last year, it was, yeah, it was a powerful moment to see people that. I think, like a lot of people would say, a lot of us are. What are we? We're just a bit different. I think a lot of us are a bit different.

Joeri: 7:32

Yeah, absolutely.

Jax: 7:35

We can be a bit awkward in the main space as well. And then when you get to meet people that are that think differently, that are a little bit awkward, that maybe don't quite fit into the rest of Web3, because it can be quite which will, a commercial or something or it can be, but there's lots of traditional finance and it is yeah, it's a bit, yeah, professional in that sense.

Jax: 7:56

So then, when you've got this other people on the side that aren't that don't fit into that box it's quite nice to see people come together where you can be yourself and you don't feel like you have to fit into this kind of professional web3 in that way of TradFi.

Joeri: 8:12

So, yeah, I think it's just a, it's cool in that way how would you explain this to, for instance, your neighbor, if he asks, or, yes, she asks. So what are you doing? And what is this meme conference? And what is meme coins? Why the hell should I care? What would you tell him?

Jax: 8:28

yes, you've been asked that question a lot I would now go in with. So I'll be asked what do you do? Yeah, I have a conference company because you try to get them to understand it's an event and then they say, oh, what's it about? It's about cryptocurrency. Oh yeah, I think I. Yeah, I don't know cryptocurrency. And then I'll say do you know bitcoin? And they'll say, oh, yeah, I know bitcoin, is that? Do you know memes? Yeah, I know means. Do you know pepe, do you? And then I go for the biggest yeah pepe or doge.

Jax: 9:00

And then you get to the point comic-con, yeah. And then you try to say, well, it's a mix of all those things where people maybe dress up as dogs and the frogs and cats and they go to talk about cryptocurrency and the future of what is it? The future of cultural currency? That's basically how I would just describe it. So people go talk about means, currency and the future of kind of finance. So, yes, you could say it's been all of that stuff.

Joeri: 9:28

How important is the storytelling aspect around it yeah, hugely important.

Jax: 9:34

I think one of the most important parts of the storytelling again comes down to the community. We have some very special kind of people within meme con who are, I would say, almost characters, almost like meme like, and for me those people shape the conference because they are the ones that you get to see at the event that you remember. Yeah, and it is, yeah, it comes down to community. You, who do you remember from the conference? You remember mostly the people. So that's the. I think the probably most important is getting the right people to the conference.

Joeri: 10:06

yeah, normally I always say I go to conferences and I remember, indeed, the people I've met and you remember less what you heard on stage, because that's something people forget a lot, because you remember impressions, but here it's a bit different, because what's on stage it's not like what you see at every conference.

Jax: 10:23

right, yeah, exactly Right. So you remember David's, you remember the crazy things.

Joeri: 10:30

I remember, yeah, the crazy things.

Jax: 10:31

I remember, yeah, the crazy what's happening before I spoke on stage, but also my panel I have really good yeah good picture about this.

Joeri: 10:35

If you put this picture online, it's not all the 1000 pictures that you would see like you know, a lot of people put like these pictures. I've been on stage, but this one is really different.

Jax: 10:44

Yeah, we had a dog on stage yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah with a lion. In fact, the dog got scared of the lion.

Joeri: 10:49

Yeah but it's interesting. So people remember that and that's something that you I would say, because I'm a marketer from a marketing standpoint you want people to understand Community is marketing or marketing is community. This is really important. Storytelling, for me, is important.

Jax: 11:07

I think also like the design, because the artists said dude, she's not here.

Joeri: 11:11

The artwork has been very bold from the start, so it's like bright colors, crazy imagery, so that way I said, I think Memecoin is a really strong brand, or you can make it a really strong brand because it has all of that. It stands out right If you go to the website or you see, if you hear about memecoin. Hear about memecoin, a funny story about the website actually.

Jax: 11:32

So, yeah, when we started memecon, I had never built a website the one before I've actually a very story about, funny story about this. So somebody reached out to us on the account to ask whether memecon was real, because the website was shit it was. It literally looked like a shit coin website from a crypto or from a meme coin community and they didn't even believe it was real. They just thought it was a joke. So it was a joke of a conference and I think this is another thing that we wanted to make. It is that almost peeping. It's kind of almost mythical in the way that it's so ridiculous, it's so crazy that people were actually like, have you been to meme con? And so I didn't even think meme con was real. Yeah, just thought it was a joke, yeah. So, yeah, you make it funny at the same time. Yeah, I make it fun.

Joeri: 12:21

Of course, and you're building something right and you're and you're looking at the experience, you're bringing people together. Of course, the website is what people find online, but because you're already building this community, people find each other, people see who is going to be there. I think it's also a nice place here in Lisbon to do it Very nice. Is there any reason why you're doing this now in Lisbon, or I think you're also doing this in other places in the world, right?

Jax: 12:49

Yeah, so we started in Lisbon due to the guy who runs this conference.

Joeri: 12:53

John.

Jax: 12:54

So when we, both me and Julian, started this company, or the event it was, we don't have the funds to go out and, straight up, we didn't have the experience either.

Joeri: 13:05

We'd never ever done this before.

Jax: 13:07

yeah so we leveraged his experience to help us put this together and then, once we'd had that experience, we then decided to go to singapore and then also bangkok last year, which was really fun. And also the asian community are totally different about means. Like I think within obviously the asian culture, you have that kind of manga or anime and stuff like that so it does lean really well into that culture.

Jax: 13:30

So that was really cool. And then, yeah, we hopefully would like to do other events different places in the world. But it's, it can be tricky as well. It's hard to also organize these things. It's a lot of work.

Joeri: 13:41

Yeah, you need to have local I guess local partnerships.

Jax: 13:44

Local partnerships. Know people there Speak at the venue?

Joeri: 13:47

Yeah, it's tricky, so bring you in. Do you see people now coming to this conference would also join the other conferences, or is it really local? Yeah?

Jax: 13:57

actually we had quite a lot of people come from Lisbon to Bangkok and also to Singapore, so people really make the trip. I find that I guess it's surprising and not surprising now, because I've seen that people really love MemeCon and they again love the people that go to MemeCon, so it's like coming to see friends. But I still find it amazing that people are flying from all over the world, like yourself, and yesterday somebody came from Dubai somebody from the US, somebody from here, and that's pretty amazing to me that people fly so far.

Jax: 14:26

So yeah, it's cool.

Joeri: 14:28

Yeah, for myself. Now. I am Belgian you need an accent but I live in Sintra and I'm organizing there my retreat myself, which is Web3, ai people coming together, leaders but instead of being at a busy conference having conversations like we have.

Jax: 14:44

I think we talked to Eddie Because I said I lived in Sintra before as well. Oh no, I didn't.

Joeri: 14:48

Yeah, I lived in Sintra A bit of the energy of the place and what you can do there, but it's about, yeah, making those partnerships. It's a challenge, it's building something and believing in it. What would be a message for people now listening that they want to invest in meme coins, but they are a bit scared. Do you have any advice? Be careful.

Jax: 15:08

Be careful. So, as much as yeah, come in to meme coins if you want to have fun. If you, you shouldn't enter meme coins thinking that you're going to come in and make a fortune. You should come into it and treat it like almost gambling. I really believe that because the space is still so new, in my opinion.

Jax: 15:33

I came into crypto 2017 and I didn't. I thought I was early, I didn't realize how early, but now, looking at the space the way it is and that's actually, I think, because of meme coins the last year it's been so interesting to see like this massive kind of like part of the web free space really come together. Even though you had dogecoin and the other big coins in the past, there wasn't this. There was. It basically comes out, I think, the trenches, people who are really there every day grinding, but they've built like a cult, like community across the whole meme coin space.

Jax: 16:08

Yeah, and I believe that is something that's very powerful, that people coming in should know it's very early and that we still need to have at least, I would say, another couple of years to recognize big brands like pudgy penguins, but within the meme coin space come together. So you shouldn't come in and invest in a meme and thinking that, like you're going to hit a home run, it's more like you come in to learn the space, to understand that this is still gambling and that you're betting on the space becoming bigger. But you should only ever do, obviously, risk a very small amount of your capital in anything like this, absolutely.

Joeri: 16:49

I think that's a great advice at the end of this podcast episode. Cool, thank you.

Joeri: 16:54

Jack. I will put the link to Mimcon in the show notes, as always. Guys, thank you so much for listening. If you think that people around you should listen to these podcast episodes, because there is really some value that Jack's shared with us, be sure to do that. If you're not yet subscribed, this is a really good moment to click yeah, subscribe to the podcast. Of course, if you haven't given me a review yet, these five stars would give me an even bigger reach. And yeah, I see you back next time. Take care Bye, thank you.