Re:Building Together EP 261 — "Comeback Kids"

Host: CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG), with co-hosts Baked (@Bakedmetax) and Valerie Kates (@valeriekates_) · Tue, 14 Jul 2026 · 59:40 · ~6 speakers

TL;DR

• The theme: what actually counts as a "comeback" in Web3 — the room lands on projects that were once alive, went dormant, and got new life injected (team return, CTO, or renewed community energy), not just floor price recovering.
• Quirkys under Poppy gets named the cleanest example of a real comeback; Space Riders (via founder Zubit re-engaging) and Azuki (building through its drama) also cited.
• Recurring lesson: a patient, believing community is the real ingredient — projects that never quit ("Comeback Kids") tend to win.
• Slick Ric drops in mid-show with a bullish Solana thesis and an enthusiastic report on using paid AI for trade/chart analysis and for teaching his kids.
• Lots of MetaMask "year-in-review" ribbing (Seasoned Nomad vs. JPEG Baron) and collective regret over gas fees paid in 2022.
• Housekeeping: daily shows at the same time — Way Back Wednesday next, AI news Thursday, People Over Pictures Friday, Creation Corner Saturday, Collectibles Sunday.

Highlights

[9:44] The Cleanosaurus that got away. Val kicks off the personal-regret genre of the day: after a Vegas dinner where the whole Cleanosaurus team told everyone to buy, she went home, hesitated, and missed the window — right before the announcement of an Amazon Prime show. CEELOS thanks her "for the alpha" while noting he couldn't afford one anyway.

[15:42] Defining "comeback." CEELOS opens the actual topic by asking what makes a project genuinely "back." Val floats whether CTOs count ("Yeah, why not? The rules are being written right now"), and Baked frames the working definition: a project has to have been successful first, then died, for a return to qualify — meaning steady builders like their own regions aren't comebacks, "we just been building."

[18:14] Price isn't the metric. Baked argues a comeback is about activity, not floor: "there's still the punks... they're not doing anything, so I don't think price has anything to do with it. I think it's just what you're actually doing." CEELOS adds the awkward reality that outsiders judge a project dead by a quiet timeline while the team may be building quietly in Discord.

[24:12] Space Riders as a live case. Asked which projects have actually come back, CEELOS points to Space Riders — floor once at ~0.08, then founder Zubit re-engaged, leaned into spaces and founder visibility, and holder count and price recovered. His broader point: 2022 didn't demand founders be vocal in spaces; 2026 does.

[27:00] Quirkys, the textbook comeback. Baked names Quirkys (and the Inks) as his shining example: dormant, then Poppy took over, floor quadrupled in a year, sentiment returned, three collections active. CEELOS defends the Inks' honor against being called a "side piece" and credits Poppy's IRL merch/skate push and bringing the original artist back.

[30:19] Slick Ric arrives from the state fair. Slick joins scrambling between a doctor's video visit, a dump run, gas cans, and eleven booths/trailers — "blessed to be stressed." He riffs that NFTs are slow rugs and meme coins fast rugs, and that the projects that never quit (shout to Cleanosaurus) are the ones that win.

[40:06] The Solana thesis. Slick lays out why he's buying only Solana — MasterCard/Visa partnerships, fastest and cheapest transactions, RWA tokenization — putting in ~$4K every two weeks. CEELOS, an admitted NFT-first guy who only bought crypto to get JPEGs, says he'd do the same "if I had your credit money."

[41:07 & 51:26] AI as a founder tool. Slick's AI enthusiasm ($20/mo plus plan for chart analysis, liquidity-grab alerts) folds neatly into the comeback theme — CEELOS notes any project reviving itself should be using AI for content, holder tracking, and analysis. Solo Dolo and CEELOS also reminisce that the 2022 gas wars were somehow "so fun."

Topic timeline

Notable quotes

• "Floor price is one thing and it's in its own, but... to be considered a comeback, it's gotta be more than just price." — Baked [18:15]
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  0:38
• "We just been building. We ain't been up there yet to come back." — Baked [18:22]
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  0:38
• "Any project that wants to make a comeback needs to kind of take notes as to the new leaders of the space." — CEELOS [23:17]
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• "Blessed to be stressed, God is great, couldn't complain even if I wanted to." — Slick Ric [30:19]
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  0:38
• "I feel like NFTs are slow rugs and meme coins are fast rugs... those that never quit will win in the end." — Slick Ric [37:07]
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• "The space is wicked, the space is mean, the space forgets real fast. You need to learn how to adapt, you need to learn how to pivot." — CEELOS [51:57]
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  0:38

Who said what

• CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG)^* — host; drove the comeback framework, offered the fullest examples (Space Riders, Azuki, Kid Called Beast) and the running thesis that community patience + IP + a finished product define a real return. Self-described NFT-first, crypto-second.
• Baked (@Bakedmetax)^* — co-host; supplied the working definition (must rise, die, then return) and the Quirkys/Inks case study; handled the mid-space reset and housekeeping.
• Valerie Kates (@valeriekates_)^* — co-host; brought the Cleanosaurus missed-buy story and the CTO question, plus the MetaMask/gas-fee banter.
• Solo Dolo (@solodolo)^* — speaker; comic relief (nostalgia for Dented Fields and the gas wars, a Friday-the-13th tattoo), and a France moneyline bet.
• Slick Ric (@richj530)^* — speaker; late arrival with the day's most concrete market takes — Solana conviction, AI-for-trading workflow, and the slow-rug/fast-rug framing.

Worth a full listen

• [15:42]–[29:22] — The core conversation: the group works out, in real time, what "comeback" even means and stress-tests it against Space Riders and Quirkys. This is the episode's actual substance and hard to compress.
• [30:19]–[41:07] — Slick Ric's unfiltered drop-in: the state-fair chaos, his AI setup, and the Solana pitch. It's the energy shift of the show and worth hearing in his own cadence.

* some voices are identified from context; those names are marked as likely.