# Re:Envisioning Web3 | Fireside chat with Eco

Host: Lyss (@Lysss302) with cohost Jed (@jed_131) · Fri, Dec 5, 2025 · 1:13:03 · 7 speakers

## TL;DR
- Friday fireside with Eco (@lordeco) — Ghost Lab founder, now working with World of Women — covering his whole arc: Portuguese village kid with his dad's IBM laptop, Pokémon sealed-box flipper, Ethereum miner, NFT whale, founder who took nearly three years to mint out.
- Jed opened hot about the turnout [8:07], and the room ran with "where is everybody" as the day's theme rather than a complaint.
- Eco's origin story: he funded his crypto bags by selling a Pokémon collection into the Logan Paul–era hype, and the buyer who introduced him to NFTs was a collector he met through those sales [24:12].
- The core lesson he kept returning to: no roadmap, no promises, just show up — and support other people's projects without shilling your own [38:05], [57:46].
- His parting advice to anyone thinking of launching an NFT collection: don't [1:05:03].
- Housekeeping that mattered: Lyss plugged Sam's charity auction for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention [1:08:54], a Regens collab where Jed buys a chicken for the Tight Media farm in Nigeria for every three Regens bought, and new community members William and Brad (D Pin Connection).

## Highlights

**[8:07] Jed sets the tone.** Opening on a Friday with thin numbers, Jed didn't soften it: Eco has been grinding five years, helping communities and people's lives, "and it upsets me that like where is everybody, man?" He pre-apologized for offending anyone and then declined to actually be sorry. Lyss tried to offer the room an excuse; Jed declined that too [9:15].

**[9:29] Crono's warm roast.** Crono said he gets angry when Eco's around too, worked through the eco/echo/Lord Eco/Lady Eco naming problem, and then dropped the act: Eco has refilled wallets for people scammed in his project, showed up every day for years, and "I've never seen another project give more to the people supporting them than you have." He noted the World of Women role was earned, not gifted — then promised not to make a habit of the kindness.

**[11:15] Slick checks in.** Back from being sick, Slick delivered his usual reveille — "nothing changes but the name of the day" — pointed out that Lyss is holding spaces from Miami with Peanut and asked the room what their excuse was, and declared himself on Jed's time: "You better get right or get left."

**[24:12] Pokémon cards to NFTs.** Eco was a heavy collector of sealed Pokémon product — base set, fossil, PSA-graded cards — and when the YouTube box-opening hype hit, he read it as a top and liquidated, taking payment in BTC and ETH at a time when Portugal had no crypto tax. One of his biggest buyers was the collector who kept asking him if he'd heard of these things called NFTs. Eco's initial reaction: "I'm not going to pay any money for a fucking picture on the internet."

**[27:53] The era of sweeping 20.** Eco walked through the whale phase he's openly not proud of: 50 World of Women, two Bored Apes, and a compulsive habit of buying exactly twenty of everything — Lazy Lions, Doodles, Cool Cats, you name it. "I have a thing for 20s. I don't know why." Best outcome of the period: a free one-of-one from the WoW Galaxy drop that he sold for 75 ETH [30:05].

**[33:34] The worst trade that wasn't.** Crono asked where Eco screwed up. Eco's answer was a Bored Ape he traded to Papii for a World of Women — financially a loss, except it produced one of his closest friendships in the space, now the kind where 20k and 50k deals happen on trust alone [47:01]. Crono's verdict: "that doesn't sound like a loss at all."

**[38:05] Why projects die.** Asked by Slick what the common failure mode is, Eco's answer was blunt — people give up. Ghost Lab took nearly three years to mint out and he never considered quitting. The companion lesson: he spent years in other people's Spaces supporting their projects without shilling his own, to the point where founders like Papii had to prompt him to mention Ghost Lab at all. Slick echoed it back as "build your real relationships before you build your bags" [40:20].

**[51:44] The night Wolf Game bailed him out.** Two months into mint, Ghost Lab had about a hundred mints on a 10k collection. Eco was in bed when his phone exploded — the Wolf Game Discord had decided to get behind him because he'd been supporting them for months, and roughly a thousand mints came through overnight. He also recounted organizing a Christmas Space that pulled in founders from Quirkies, Lazy Lions, Pudgy, the Plague and more [53:11].

**[57:46] "There is no roadmap."** Eco described a holder who asked what Ghost Lab was actually building, and got complete honesty: nothing crazy, no revolutionary game, just a community project where he leverages his network to funnel value — token allocations, NFTs, poker nights, raffles — to holders. The holder promptly swept a hundred ghosts. Byrd confirmed it from the inside [1:01:00], describing weeks of quiet vibes punctuated by Eco randomly announcing he'd start paying people for raids, and coining the phrase "NFT fatigue" for why good projects are currently getting punished for the sins of bad ones.

**[1:03:01] Lord business.** Byrd, on his first day on the job as a speaker, asked the question the whole room has: is it eco or echo? Answer: it's Lord now. Eco confessed the bio title has produced strangers earnestly addressing him as "Lord" in Spaces, and Byrd insisted he complete the bit by buying a square foot of land somewhere to make it official. Eco: "I did, I did." Crono's takeaway from the no-roadmap philosophy, delivered a minute later [1:03:48]: "my takeaway here is to not have expectations in eco."

**[1:04:54] The guy who stopped digging.** Asked what he'd tell someone about to quit, Eco reached for the old cartoon of the miner who turns back a few feet short of the gold. Then he undercut himself perfectly: "one piece of advice if you are thinking about launching an NFT collection, please don't, because it's hard." Lyss choked on her water and agreed — go support a collection that's already building instead of minting another one.

## Topic timeline

| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| [0:16]–[6:43] | Music / room filling up |
| [6:43]–[14:23] | Lyss intro, OTF schedule, Art Basel, panel check-ins and the turnout gripe |
| [14:30]–[17:54] | Eco's health, World of Women team in Miami, praise for V and the WoW crew |
| [18:16]–[22:10] | Childhood in Portugal, his dad's IBM laptop, computer science |
| [22:10]–[24:04] | Early company, buying ETH at $9, the backyard GPU mining farm and sharing profits with Ghost Lab holders |
| [24:12]–[27:28] | Pokémon cards → crypto → first World of Women and Bored Apes |
| [27:53]–[35:59] | Whale era, sweeping 20s, the 75 ETH Galaxy one-of-one, the Papii trade, ApeCoin |
| [36:18]–[37:22] | Early Web3 jobs: NiftyFi and Zarta |
| [37:27]–[44:00] | Why people fail, supporting before shilling, how the World of Women role happened |
| [44:00]–[48:27] | Peanut on motivation; trust, Papii, Diddy King, recovering Mulat's stolen Quirkie |
| [48:42]–[54:58] | Slick on breakout moments; the Wolf Game mint night and the big Christmas Space |
| [55:53]–[1:00:46] | Crono on commitment; the "there is no roadmap" philosophy |
| [1:01:00]–[1:04:06] | Byrd on NFT fatigue, eco vs echo, Lord |
| [1:04:06]–[1:07:29] | Advice on not giving up; Peanut's closing thanks |
| [1:07:29]–[1:12:31] | Lyss wrap: Art Basel, Sam's charity auction, chickens, new members, Slick's sign-off |

## Notable quotes

- "The fact that there ain't fucking 200 people in here just shows me people are so out of touch right now, or this fucking lazy." — Jed [8:07]
- "I've never seen another project give more to the people supporting them than you have." — Crono, on Ghost Lab [9:29]
- "I'm back like chick, back like crack, real quick... Nothing changes but the name of the day." — SLICK RIC [11:15]
- "I have a thing for 20s. I don't know why every project was out, and I was like, okay, let me sweep 20." — Eco [29:08]
- "You go, you support others, and if there is a chance, if there's an opportunity, then you can talk about your stuff." — Eco [40:08]
- "One piece of advice if you are thinking about launching an NFT collection, please don't, because it's hard." — Eco [1:04:54]

## Who said what

- **Lyss** (@Lysss302) — host, dialing in from Miami during Art Basel; walked Eco chronologically from childhood to the World of Women role and closed with the community rundown.
- **Jed** (@jed_131) — cohost, opened with the turnout callout and pressed Eco on his best trade and the responsibility founders take on when people invest time and money [46:37].
- **Eco** (@lordeco) — the guest. Portugal, Pokémon, mining rigs, 50 WoW, a three-year mint, and a stated allergy to roadmaps and promises.
- **Crono** (@Crono1000) — the room's designated ball-buster, who spent most of the hour being sincere about commitment and accountability and then recovered his form by the end.
- **SLICK RIC** (@richj530) — asked the two best questions of the Space (what makes people fail; when did the momentum turn) and closed with the relationships-before-bags sermon.
- **Peanut** (@peanutt) — asked Eco for his "why," and thanked him for spotting talent in people and elevating them [1:06:25].
- **Byrd** (@onlybyrds) — first time on stage; coined "NFT fatigue" and settled the pronunciation question, sort of.

## Worth a full listen

- **[24:12]–[31:11]** — The Pokémon-to-NFT pipeline told straight through, including the "just fucking JPEGs" phase, the 20-of-everything sweeps, and the free one-of-one that sold for 75 ETH. Eco's own accounting of what he lost is more interesting than any highlight reel of what he won.
- **[51:44]–[54:58]** — The Wolf Game night and the Christmas founders Space. This is the part that explains the whole thesis: he supported other projects for months with nothing asked, and then a thousand mints arrived while he was asleep.
- **[1:01:00]–[1:05:52]** — Byrd's insider account of Ghost Lab, the Lord detour, Crono's one-line review of the no-roadmap philosophy, and Eco's advice for aspiring founders. The funniest stretch of the hour, with the actual thesis buried inside it.