# Re:Envisioning Web3 | Fireside with FUGZ founder Yot

Host: Jed (@jed_131) with cohost Lyss (@Lysss302) · Fri, 27 Mar 2026 · 1:32:51 · ~8 speakers

## TL;DR
- Friday fireside with **Yot** (@yotdog69), founder/creative director of FUGZ — a UK ex-UX/UI designer and front-end dev who went full-time Web3 in January 2022 and minted FUGZ in June, nine months before this chat.
- Yot shared the rough backstory behind the project: a separation, losing house and car, and being 11 days from homelessness for the second time in his life. FUGZ came out of that — "a culture of connection" built, as he put it, partly because he was lonely.
- FUGZ minted out with **zero paid marketing**, after five months of Yot personally getting on calls with people he'd met over four or five years — he believes they're the only team on Abstract to do that.
- On the Abstract XP changes that cut NFT holders out, Yot stayed measured ("that's not my department"), while Jed called it a slap in the face; Yot noted the community has been loud enough lately that a chain move is at least an internal discussion.
- Social traction: ~85k Instagram followers in five months, all organic, with a top post around 55 million views. Twelve named FUGZ personalities (Hiro is the main guy) are the discovery engine.
- Teasers and housekeeping: "big week next week for FUGZ, probably one of our biggest moves yet," a planned Jed/Yot call about getting FUGZ into Rematch as its first Abstract project, and the Fuggets community space on Thursdays (12 EST, mostly).

## Highlights

**[13:31] From Toyota and Capital One to NFTs.** Yot laid out the résumé: UX/UI and front-end work in automotive and UK finance, NFTs discovered mid-2021, full-time by the end of January 2022. Along the way he designed what he says were Web3's first cross-chain NFT swap tool and first NFT broker tool, then spent two quiet years building FUGZ before the June mint.

**[15:24] The ankle that ended football.** Before the creative stuff, Yot was semi-pro, playing for both his county and his club — until he snapped three of five ligaments in his right ankle. The doctor told him he'd have been better off just breaking it. He never played the same again, "and that fucked me off beyond belief," so the energy got funneled into making cool things instead.

**[17:03] Obsession as a founder trait.** Jed's thesis: the best founders can't turn it off, grass-touching included — he's wearing a hat that says *not tired*. Yot called it a blessing and a curse, mentioned he's had his share of death threats, and landed the line about nobody in the space being harder on him than himself. Jed matched it with his own ritual of telling the mirror "you suck" every morning.

**[19:02] How FUGZ was actually born.** Four art iterations, a market Yot looked at and decided wouldn't take the project as-is, and then a personal collapse: separation, house, car, everything gone, 11 days from homelessness. What came out of it was a brand built around connection and personality-driven characters — because he was, by his own account, pretty lonely at the time. He also noted two hires got poached by Pudgy Penguins, which decimated him a little but told him he'd hired well.

**[25:59] The dog, and the quote.** The one non-negotiable in the separation was the dog — ten years by his side and, as he put it, if she wasn't coming with him he'd burn the lot down because nobody's getting anything. He closed with a line someone gave him at the time about asking for strength and getting challenges, which has stuck.

**[30:00] A mint with no marketing budget.** No agency routine, no influencer blitz — five months of Yot calling everyone he'd connected with over four or five years, thousands of calls by mint day, and the whole thing sold out before public. He put what little money he had left after the separation into it: "I honestly I took the biggest risk."

**[33:23] Abstract, XP, and staying diplomatic.** Yot's position since pre-mint: FUGZ depends on nobody but itself. He acknowledged the L2 sentiment drag and the recent XP removal for NFTs, dismissed the "how does holding NFTs benefit the chain" framing, and suggested the transaction farming push may just be vanity metrics for a raise. Jed was blunter, arguing NFTs are what drove the last cycle and that cutting them out is a slap in the face — then gave Yot credit for keeping it measured.

**[39:45] Twelve personalities, built like a real family.** Hiro (H-I-R-O) fronts the brand, but the design logic is that you're *supposed* to dislike a couple of them, the way you do with an actual family. Ug, the caveman FUG scared of new technology and confused by bright lights, is based directly on Yot's dad — getting a text back from him is "insane." The characters do discovery work on TikTok and Instagram so people fall for a character first and find the brand second.

**[50:21] "I want them to feel seen."** Asked how many of his top holders he's connected with personally, Yot ran through names from the crowd and said he connects daily with most of them. The bar he set: at minimum, anyone who buys into FUGZ should feel seen. Jed drew the parallel to his restaurant, where staff are trained to remember something about every guest.

**[1:04:06] Slick Ric's question, and the answer about purpose.** SLICK RIC asked what kept Yot out of the mental black hole during the homeless stretches. Yot's answer — find purpose, do something useful for someone else, and it usually comes back around — became the gem of the space. Ric then tied it to coaching his daughter's softball team and finding more in that than in anything monetary. Yot followed with a note on modern Western life being well-built to turn people into solitary professionals, and the advice that in a sea of sameness, the unique part is you — so get yourself out there.

**[1:19:11] Dan's FUGZ gladiator TCG.** Yot shouted out Dan (@brokenrealitydh), who used his FUGZ commercial rights to put FUGZ in a gladiator trading card game he built and took to Denver. Dan's report from the arcade: kids could not get away from it, especially the butt wiggle on screen.

## Topic timeline

| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| [0:19]–[10:31] | Music and motivational audio to open the room |
| [10:31]–[13:31] | Intros, green-background jokes, state of Abstract |
| [13:31]–[19:02] | Yot's background: design career, football, the injury |
| [19:02]–[27:00] | Building FUGZ out of a bad year; homelessness, the dog, purpose |
| [27:00]–[33:00] | Art iterations, the V1 "potatoes," mint day with zero marketing spend |
| [33:00]–[39:00] | Abstract, XP changes, NFTs and chain culture |
| [39:00]–[50:00] | The 12 personalities, social strategy, IP scaling plans |
| [50:00]–[56:00] | Community connection, founder accessibility, Al's late arrival |
| [1:00:00]–[1:04:00] | Al, May June and the Fuggets, steakhouse mashed potatoes |
| [1:04:06]–[1:11:27] | SLICK RIC on purpose; standing out as yourself |
| [1:12:05]–[1:20:46] | Jazzy and Dan on vulnerability; the FUGZ gladiator TCG |
| [1:21:02]–[1:30:00] | Rematch call, Fuggets space times, sign-offs |

## Notable quotes

- "I can promise absolutely anyone that there is nobody in this space that will be harder on me than me." — Yot [17:43]
- "When you ask for strength, don't be surprised when God gives you challenges." — Yot, quoting something given to him at the time [25:59]
- "I can quite happily not do much and I can tweet three times a day about how we're gonna take over the world… We're just gonna fug on and we are gonna make sure that this succeeds any way we possibly can." — Yot [49:58]
- "If anyone's gonna buy into FUGZ, at the very minimum I want them to feel seen. It's that simple for me." — Yot [51:15]
- "If you're all doing the same thing… then the only unique part is you." — Yot [1:08:25]
- "Yot is hungry as fuck. He's got a chip on his shoulder, and nothing's gonna stop him from getting where he wants to be." — Jed [1:16:15]

## Who said what

- **Jed** (@jed_131, host) — ran the interview, pushed for the childhood-and-hard-times version of the story rather than the roadmap, was openly critical of chains that treat NFTs as a rounding error, and kept offering steaks to anyone passing through New York.
- **Lyss** (@Lysss302, cohost) — handled the purple-pill glitch, posted socials, confessed she'd only just discovered FUGZ and was already eyeing a bubblegum on the floor.
- **Yot** (@yotdog69, guest) — the whole show: career, injury, separation, mint, chain politics, character design, and a closing bit of alpha that amounts to "buy the FUG you actually like."
- **SLICK RIC** (@richj530) — asked the question that reframed the second half, on mindset through the hard stretches, and connected it to coaching youth softball.
- **May June** (@MayJune20121) — runs the Fuggets subcommunity and its Thursday spaces (12 EST, except when it isn't), holds the 1/1 Kawaii FUG, writes AI songs about Hiro and Flora, and still has the steakhouse paper bag for a future scrapbook.
- **AL** (@thepeengwin) — arrived late because he was watching nine Pudgy mystery boxes get ripped, self-diagnosed "crypto boomer… it's a skill issue," and remains, per Jed, inescapable in every chat.
- **Dan** (@brokenrealitydh) — nervous to come up, did it anyway, shared that the conversation caught him off guard driving into the city, and showed off the FUGZ-powered gladiator TCG he took to Denver.
- **Jazzy** — on the gap between the sparkly timeline and real life, and on deliberately surrounding yourself with people who make you uncomfortable.

## Worth a full listen

- **[19:02]–[27:00]** — the separation, the near-homelessness, the dog, and the quote about strength, with Jed matching it from his own side. This is the heart of the space, and the paraphrase flattens it.
- **[1:04:06]–[1:11:27]** — SLICK RIC's question and Yot's answer on purpose, followed by the riff on loneliness, modern work, and why being yourself is the only real differentiator. The best sustained thinking in the space.
- **[1:16:31]–[1:20:46]** — Dan's unscripted thank-you and the FUGZ TCG story that follows, including kids at a Denver arcade and a very well-received butt wiggle.