ZEROPOD #25 - "Enjoy Nouns!" with Hong Kim aka Noun 40, cofounder and CTO of Bitwise

On episode 25 of the Zero Rights Reserved podcast, host Toady Hawk from The Noun Square sits down with Hong Kim aka Noun 40, cofounder and CTO of Bitwise for a deep dive on all things Nouns! We learn about what attracted Hong to Nouns, and chat about the importance of figuring out ways to fund the things nobody wants to fund (public goods.) We chat about the forthcoming $NOUNS fungible token, the nouns minting culture, Hong's dream proposals, and much, much more. If you're a fan of nouns, this is not one to miss! If you enjoy this conversation, please LIKE & Subscribe so others can find it and enjoy it too! --- Timestamps: 00:00 - Teaser: 40 on the importance of repairing market failures and funding public goods, and why nouns appealed to him 02:04 - ZeroPod intro 02:31 - Welcoming 40 to the pod. 04:22 - The 40 Origin Story. 04:47 - Falling down the Crypto rabbit hole in 2016. 05:30 - “Everyone is early” 06:00 - The origin/idea for Bitwise Investments 07:15 - Onchain journey & nouns journey 07:39 - Crypto’s opportunity to repair market failures and fund public goods 10:20 - Nouns: “Maybe we can just build memes that fund public goods” 12:00 - Where did you first hear about Nouns 12:58 - Why Void Head noun? 15:02 - Favourite noun head aside from Void? 16:34 -“The silliness of nouns allows people to be a little less serious than in most governance contexts.” 17:50 - The benefit of nouns’ gradual token issuance 21:36 - What is his definition of nouns & nounishness (aka “40 goes off”) 26:00 - Appreciation for the craft of the art and code base of nouns 27:40 - “We’re doing great on the weirdness front.” 28:10 - Talking $NOUNS (nouns fungible token) 31:00 - $NOUNS broad overview 32:33 - Lessons from Bitcoin’s fractionalization and culture 35:00 - There’s currently no good way to own a fraction of a Noun 40:00 - Who would swap $NOUNS for Nouns and why? 46:30 - Potential future governance participation by $NOUNS holders 47:04 - “Speculation is a superpower.” 49:51 - $NOUNS as an API 52:00 - $NOUNS as a potentially meaningful way to acquire new fans for nouns-funded projects 53:37 - Will $NOUNS have a positive or negative effect on arbitrage? 57:00 - $NOUNS Timeline… alpha? 57:50 - The future of the nouns minting economy 1:02:58 - Mint to support 1:04:00 - Minting as a way to further decentralize nouns funding 1:06:56 - Minting Splits as a way to tag mints as nounish on zora 1:08:00 - How to get enough volume on nounish mints for revenue to be meaningful 1:12:00 - rounds.wtf and possible minting applications 1:14:00 - Ideal nouns proposal (lessons from the DARPA model… but for onchain world) 1:20:00 - Think hyperlocal 1:22:00 - On Bitwise, and what might make wall street take notice of a project like nouns? 1:26:00 - What is 40 most excited about for Nouns? Thoughts on the new delegation governor. 1:31:00 - “Enjoy Nouns!” 1:31:51 - ? --- Podcast recorded by Toady Hawk, edited by Toady Hawk and JackWyldes. Hosted by Toady Hawk. Music by Toady Hawk x Suno AI. Zero Rights Reserved, please remix and reuse our content in any way you like! Produced by The Noun Square onchain media collective. Follow @ thenounsquare on Twitter for daily content about Nouns, NFTs, Ethereum and more or visit https://tns.wtf to learn more. #ethereum #nouns #nfts #noun4 #onchain