# Re:Envisioning Web3 — 1-on-1 Fireside with Zubic (Space Riders)

Host: Jed (@jed_131) with Lyss (@Lysss302) · Guest: Zubic (@zubic_eth) · Fri, 22 May 2026 · 1:07:20 · 3 main voices (+ a co-host handling the rescreen)

## TL;DR
- Jed opened with a nine-minute DJ set because Zubic answered the "what music do you like" text with East Coast boom bap — including Big L, which Jed took as a character reference [10:52].
- Zubic walked the whole arc: culinary school and kitchen work, laid off in COVID, Bitcoin → ETH → shit coins → seeing a gold Bored Ape sell on his timeline when he had ~40 followers [12:11], [16:50].
- Space Riders' origin story in full: a tweet looking for an artist and a dev who would *stay*, meeting Cab and Lee, a mint that stalled at 500 and had to be rescued over a couple of weeks [24:42].
- The forward plan is "alignment": a contract migration within ~5–6 days with enforced royalties, scrapping the on-chain Star Token, a rebuilt Spaceport portal, and product built *with* holders rather than sold *to* them [34:49], [50:39].
- Zubic spoke openly about therapy and personal changes last year, and credited them with resetting how he shows up for the project [40:15].
- The closing question — "what's your why?" — got a one-word answer and then ten minutes of elaboration: people [59:49].

## Highlights

**[9:52] The soundtrack as vetting process.** After an extended opener of Ja Rule-era radio and Fabolous, Jed explained why the music mattered: he'd texted Zubic asking what he listened to, and the reply came back with the right names. "Not many people know about Big L, so that was impressive." Zubic, born and raised in the GTA, confirmed his playlist is mostly Brooklyn underground — "I still to this day think he's probably the best rapper out there" [11:13].

**[12:11] Chef first, degen second.** Zubic studied culinary science, worked hotels, casinos and restaurants for a decade, and still cooks daily. COVID ended the job; the spare cash went into Bitcoin and ETH, then NFTs. His old boss, a Hungarian chef he described as a hard ass, gets credit for putting a spine on him — a theme he returned to later.

**[13:19] Pokémon, pucks and the merging line.** On childhood collecting: Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, hockey and baseball cards. He pitched and played third, hated catching, and was by his own account never that good at hockey despite it being the family sport. Watching friends print on Pokémon now, he sees the gap closing: "that fine line is really merging" between physical and digital collecting [14:46]. (Jed's take on the five-foot-ten self-assessment, from a man who is five-seven: five-ten is a giant [16:33].)

**[22:33] A swipe-to-buy demo that genuinely impressed him.** Zubic described testing OpenSea's new beta app with an exec who handed him $25 of ETH to play with: ETH on Ethereum, NFT on Base, no bridging, no relay, no MetaMask gymnastics — just swipe, and it was in the wallet. His read: mobile has to be perfect or the next wave never arrives. Jed added the missing half — selling and off-ramping still aren't solved, and he misses how simply Top Shot and Nifty Gateway let normies cash out [24:07].

**[24:42] How Space Riders actually got made.** He wasn't an artist or a dev, so he tweeted for both — and specified he wanted people who'd stick around rather than generate art and move to the next project. Cab (Mexico, artist, "brother from another mother") and Lee (full-stack dev, still full time four years later) answered. Space as a theme was chosen for being universally legible — "if a six-year-old kid were to look at it or a 50-year-old... they all kind of get the same idea" [32:14]. Then the mint stalled at 500, they ate the humble pie, made changes, and sold out weeks later [32:51].

**[34:49] Alignment, and why he no longer trusts the marketplaces.** The core of the forward-looking segment: a contract migration with enforced royalties, announced within days, because on-chain incentives between team and holders have to come before merch, IP or anything else. His framing on the facilitators was blunt — marketplaces are profit-based companies, business is business, but the tech now exists to not depend on them. Also notable: in four-plus years Space Riders has never raised close to a million dollars, while teams that raised two million last year are nowhere to be found [37:37].

**[40:15] "It starts with me."** Zubic talked about a year of significant personal change — physical, mental, relationships — getting help, and coming out of it an advocate for therapy. He tied it directly to the project: before anything could be fixed at Space Riders, something had to change in him, and the effect trickles to Cab, to Lee, to the community. He also noted that 98% of people who say they want to do this discover after one bad mint that they don't [41:38].

**[43:59] Jed's standing PSA to communities.** Jed made his standing plea on behalf of founders everywhere: being the front-facing person, doing DMs and calls, building product and running a team is already the job — and when the founder goes quiet for two days, the whole timeline goes quiet with them. "If you guys just as a community could just fill that role, we will be fucking kicking ass." He compared the first engagement a newcomer gets to hospitality: it's the whole impression.

**[45:32] Toe-to-toe with the Plague.** A warm bit of NFT history: Riders and the Plague used to go head to head in timeline polls and raids, with engagement farmers setting up "should I buy a Rider or a Plague?" posts, getting both communities to show up, and then buying neither. He credits the rivalry with keeping both collections humble and on their toes. "I'll always be thankful for that and hold my frog forever."

**[50:39] What's next: build with the holders.** Rather than opening a Shopify store, Space Riders is getting on calls with community members who already make toys, shirts, hats and run IRL events, so holders get paid and get traffic too. The Spaceport portal is being rebuilt around badges, tiers, image generation and IP tooling; Star Token moves off-chain to a database (a public reversal he owned outright — "hindsight's 2020, I used to talk a lot of shit about off-chain tokens" [56:24]). And they want to sweep other collections' floors — Regen, Quirkies, LT3, Long Lost — because with an NFT market cap barely above a billion, "every one of us can fucking grow here" [57:35].

**[59:49] The why.** Jed's closing question to every founder got an immediate answer: people. Zubic described himself as a social Nelly, named relationships formed with people he's never met IRL, and detoured into what his therapist taught him about pack animals and why humans run the same way. The capstone was picking Cab up at Pearson in 2022 after years of only knowing each other online: "we just gave each other the biggest hug because it was like, man, I feel like I've known you my whole fucking life" [1:02:12].

**[1:04:14] Cooked by the normies.** Lyss recommended Zubic's recent Spotify roast to anyone who missed it. His own review of the experience: "I got cooked. The normies are fucking ripping my ass apart. I honestly was dying. Some people were chirping me real good. It was awesome."

## Topic timeline

| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| [0:30] – [9:52] | Rescreen, mic troubleshooting, Jed's Friday-evening DJ set |
| [9:52] – [12:11] | Lyss checks in; Big L, East Coast rap, Toronto |
| [12:11] – [16:50] | Culinary career, COVID layoff, childhood collecting, hockey & baseball |
| [16:50] – [21:10] | Entry into NFTs; Jed's X Copy / Nifty Gateway origin; COVID as catalyst |
| [21:10] – [24:42] | Who stayed after 2022; OpenSea mobile beta; the off-ramp problem |
| [24:42] – [33:34] | Space Riders origin: Cab, Lee, the space theme, the rough mint |
| [33:34] – [39:38] | Building in public, alignment, contract migration, royalties, marketplaces |
| [39:38] – [43:59] | Personal reset, therapy, kitchen spine, why most founders quit |
| [43:59] – [50:14] | Jed's PSA to communities; the Plague rivalry; being real on the timeline |
| [50:39] – [59:14] | Roadmap: holder-built product, Spaceport portal, Star Token, floor sweeps |
| [59:49] – [1:03:56] | "What's your why?" — people, pack animals, the Cab airport hug |
| [1:04:14] – [1:07:16] | Lyss closes, the Spotify roast, Nas/AZ outro |

## Notable quotes

- "Money is money at the end of the day, people won't take that to the grave, but people will remember how you made them feel." — Zubic [39:03]
- "You really grow a good spine in the restaurant industry... and in this industry in web three, you need a fucking spine because if not, you're gonna get chewed alive." — Zubic [41:38]
- "If you guys just as a community could just fill that role, like we will be fucking kicking ass." — Jed [43:59]
- "It's very easy to separate the real from the fake here." — Zubic [48:27]
- "The NFT market cap is like fucking 1.4 billion or something. That is nothing... literally, I mean it when I say every one of us can fucking grow here." — Zubic [57:28]
- "I got cooked. The normies are fucking ripping my ass apart. I honestly was dying." — Zubic on his Spotify roast [1:04:14]

## Who said what

- **Jed (@jed_131)** — host, DJ, and the one steering the arc from childhood to roadmap to "what's your why." Shared his own Nifty Gateway / X Copy entry and a gifted $5k piece from an artist when he couldn't figure out how to buy [18:19], and delivered the recurring PSA about communities carrying the timeline for their founders [43:59].
- **Zubic (@zubic_eth)** — guest and Space Riders founder. Covered the chef-to-crypto path, the collection's origin with Cab and Lee, the alignment/migration thesis, his own personal reset and therapy, and closed on people as the whole point.
- **Lyss (@Lysss302)** — co-host. Set the Friday tone up top, noted she holds a Rider but only knew Zubic through timeline trolling [9:59], and closed with the Spotify-roast recommendation and a note about Regens and Space Riders sharing a long-term view of the space [1:04:14].
- **A co-host** — handled the rescreen and room logistics, and greeted Zubic with the observation that anyone who's down with Jed's music is telling you something about themselves [10:31].

## Worth a full listen

- **[24:42] – [33:34]** — The unbroken Space Riders origin monologue. The specifics (how he screened artists, why space as a theme, what the first ugly Rider looked like, exactly how the mint went wrong) don't compress; it's the most useful stretch for anyone building.
- **[39:38] – [43:59]** — The most personal passage of the hour: the mirror moment, therapy, the kitchen-spine theory of surviving web3, and "as long as there's one holder who still wants us to do stuff, then we'll be here doing it."
- **[59:49] – [1:03:56]** — The "why" answer, running from pack animals to the Pearson Airport hug with Cab. Jed calls it the magic of web3, Zubic calls it the juice; the rest, as he put it, is gravy.