COYOTES AND CROWS

Host: UNCLE CORVUS (@unclecorvus) · Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2026 · Duration: 41:48 · Speakers: 1 (a solo campfire monologue — invited crows Ryan and Wolfie never made it to stage)

TL;DR

• What was billed as a group chat turned into a one-man fireside talk after the invited guests couldn't connect, so Uncle Corvus filled the space himself — and had plenty to say.
• The core pitch: Ethergrounds, a "coffee-native operating system" he's built with collaborator Joe Boo that puts coffee deals, recipes and provenance on-chain via enforceable smart contracts.
• His big idea for adoption: stop leading with "shiny" NFTs and instead onboard "normies" through familiar, tangible products (coffee, loyalty perks), using the NFT as a "key fob" behind the scenes.
• He walked through a concrete "recipe swap" model where a roaster in the US roasts an Australian brand's blend under a signed smart contract — making a brand global without shipping a single bag.
• Recurring theme: the coffee industry is broken (farmers underpaid, deals done sloppily over WhatsApp, certificates faked), and blockchain traceability can fix it.
• Closing note on presence and mental health — his "mind sight" idea — plus love for the Blackfeather group chat community.

Highlights

[2:32] A sticky start and an all-in shout-out. Corvus opens fighting with X's buttons ("What's going on, Elon? I think he paid his Starlink bill"), welcomes Ryan to stage, and celebrates Ryan's decision to "go all in on yourself" — the kind of clip he says he loves to see.

[6:56] Food trucks, community, and getting shafted by the council. Inspired by a picture of the "'noites" eating tacos around a food truck, he riffs on breaking bread as the best way to build community — then recounts his own food truck (smash burgers, chorizo burgers, chimichurri yogurt) getting shut down along with 17 others locally, over 300 people out of work.

[11:17] The "two heads" reality check. He argues most people outside the crypto bubble have no idea what's coming — reckoning he'd have to hop several pub tables in Australia before finding one person with a wallet, and that 90% only know Bitcoin and Ethereum, not NFTs.

[13:39] Ethergrounds, explained. He frames the project as a "complete coffee native operating system" — everything on the blockchain rather than back in Web2 — born from the absurdity of paying $49 to ship a $25 bag of coffee overseas.

[17:06] The recipe-swap smart contract. The heart of the pitch: two roasters sign a contract in-app, one takes the other's recipe and locally sourced green beans, and roasts the blend abroad. Provenance stays immutable, middlemen and shipping costs drop out, "and everyone starts making a hell of a lot more money."

[19:51] The first coffee smart contract — and the World Barista mess. He claims Ethergrounds deployed the first enforceable coffee smart contract on-chain, and tells the story of building an app with Joe Boo to run the World Barista Championship in Milan (Joe Boo pulling 36 hours straight) — a job he says ended in an attempted rip-off, and possibly a legal case he says he's ready for.

[25:34] Global without shipping a thing. The payoff line of the whole vision: roast, pack, label locally under a signed recipe contract and "you just gone global and you didn't ship a goddamn thing." Saves labor, time, fuel, the planet — "I'm here for the people."

[26:32] Why the farmer gets $1.49. His moral core: the farmer who worked 12 months gets ~$1.49/kg while the roaster clears far more — "the system that's cracked." He likens the industry to a busted carrot that split and grew a stray arm.

[38:39] Mind sight. Picking up a thought from an earlier space: "If you're living in hindsight, you're gonna be depressed. If you're living in foresight, you're gonna be anxious." His answer is a "mind sight" protocol about staying present — promptly interrupted by his dog Kelpie wanting to be let inside.

[40:04] The Ferrari. A gentle self-aware beat: mid-thought, he narrates his own distraction ("oh look at that, Ferrari") in solidarity with Wolfie doing the same thing in New York, before winding the space down for a coffee break.

Topic timeline

Notable quotes

"I can go tomorrow to the pub, sit down at a table, and I can guarantee you that I will have to hop tables before I get one person that puts their hand up that knows about crypto." — Uncle Corvus [11:17]

"It's the first successful smart contract deployed on chain between two coffee companies and a coffee deal getting put through." — Uncle Corvus [21:18]

"You just gone global and you didn't ship a goddamn thing." — Uncle Corvus [25:34]

"How is a roaster ending up with 20 bucks of profit on something that all he's done is put it in the oven? I love my roaster… but it's the system that's cracked." — Uncle Corvus [25:34]

"If you're living in hindsight, you're gonna be depressed. If you're living in foresight, you're gonna be anxious. We need to stick to the now." — Uncle Corvus [38:39]

"There's always been plenty of sunshine. The sun comes out every day and it shines a whole nation. So there's plenty for all of us." — Uncle Corvus [34:11]

Who said what

• Uncle Corvus (@unclecorvus) — host and, in practice, the sole voice. Uruguayan-Australian coffee lifer (~35 years in the trade), builder of Ethergrounds with collaborator Joe Boo. Made the case for on-chain coffee traceability, NFT-as-utility onboarding, and community-first Web3, wrapped in food-truck nostalgia and a closing note on presence.
• Ryan and Wolfie were invited crows who couldn't connect; Corvus shouted them out warmly throughout but neither spoke.

Worth a full listen

• [17:06]–[25:34] — The full Ethergrounds walkthrough, from the shipping-cost problem to the recipe-swap smart contract to "global without shipping." This is the substance of the session and the numbers/logic are easier to follow in his own telling.
• [36:56]–[40:04] — The most personal stretch: building his last beachside cafe by hand before his stroke, the "mind sight" reflection on staying present, and the dog interruption — the warmth and humor here don't compress well.