Highlights
Freddie the cat, walking on his wrist.
Mike took the day off work because Freddie couldn't flick his front right paw out to walk on the pad — "oh crap" territory, given a previous cat had a stroke. Diagnosis: probably a sprain, pain meds in hand, cat already limping around normally by showtime. The vet's x-ray upsell was politely declined.
Asun on the cost of goodbyes.
Asun followed with the story of putting his wife's elderly dog down, the ink-pad paw print taken at the vet, and the tattoo he, his wife, and her sister got of it — "so she's always gonna be with us now." He pivoted straight into the text message that ended with "if you don't come to work this afternoon and have that cat in the car, don't come and pick me up," which is how they got the cat.
Agent calls in from pre-shower.
Agent joined between his daughter's birthday outing and a shower, warning the room that if he didn't unmute in time he was "probably butt naked in the shower." This spawned an extended engineering discussion about waterproof phone enclosures versus Mike's low-tech solution: a quart ziploc with two holes, hung on the shower ring.
Ape Fest logistics.
Mike's slate: Apes on Ice (he learned to skate with his son and intends to not do anything crazy), the Ape Balls bracket, the Stonkbrokers meetup, and the bowling event — where he signed up as a spectator specifically so Machiavelli wouldn't lynch him. Also: Bored & Hungry burgers as a non-negotiable tradition, Roxol painting his ape, and the perennial advice to pack an empty extra suitcase for merch and swag.
The founders question.
Mike framed the theme: how do you decide to trust a founder, given the KOL-and-free-mint era and the fact that there's one side, the other side, and the truth somewhere in between? His own line has hardened — if a founder isn't doxxed now, he's out, no matter how good the project.
Agent: community, then experimentation.
Agent said community is the cliché that's still true, but what re-energized him was experimentation done in public — watching Clutch Markets foreshadowed earlier in the year, then minting Stonkbrokers on testnet without any idea they'd blow up. He traced the same instinct back to why he held Pudgies for years: that early build-in-public energy.
Dupes on King Pickle.
Her founder test is simple presence: a founder who says they don't work weekends and isn't around their community isn't going to have a project. She then catalogued what KP had been quietly building — anti-bot and anti-wash tooling handed free to any Ape Chain founder who asked, the cheeky UGC overlays on listed Dings that travel with the NFT on resale, and her own Ape Balls website. "That's not a guy that's gonna rug."
Why it can't be rugged.
The structural point: no single person owns the Mutual Fund contracts, so the fund keeps running, voting, and paying out even if the founder disappears. Mike connected it to what Simple Farmer did with Stonkbrokers, then started doing mint math out loud — buy seats on OpenSea, or accumulate tokens and swap through the Anvil?
Otherside field report.
Mike confessed he last logged in for the Arkham mint, got stuck in a desolate corner of the map, and left. Dupes offered a guided J Vegas tour, described the giant red solo cups she built for a Pong tournament, and reported the current state of the swamp: heavy metal robots emitting fire butt farts that turn into bubbles, because someone asked and the team said yes. Her thesis: "we're gonna stop calling it a video game."
Soul and Mike on the Whatnot market.
Soul, a Whatnot streamer for two years, described the Topps Chrome VeeFriends crossover bringing in breakers who price NFT collectibles like sports cards and buyers who don't know the comps — a saturated, wobbly market. Mike added the structural shift: 2025 was an experiment where holders and indie shops got good allocation; in 2026 Topps took the license and the distribution, more characters diluted the hits, and the big shops got the boxes.
Gary Palmer Jr. on market caps and Fanatics.
Heading to New York Comic Con, Gary made the case that NFTs made him believe in physical collectibles and AI made him believe in both — then did back-of-envelope math on every VeeFriends product as its own market cap (20,000 comics at a $100 floor = $2M) and noted the thing that blew his mind at VeeCon: Gary Vee is an investor in Fanatics, and Fanatics owns Topps.
Brrrbon gets Beeple'd.
Brrrbon came up to say a piece of his artwork had been included in a Beeple post that day — a small Claynosaurz clay bear tucked down low near the toilet in the frame. "It's little, but it means a lot to me." Mike's read: if your project is in there at all, he's watching it.
Topic timeline
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1:22–6:29 | AI country "Happy Hour" intro track |
| 6:29–18:47 | Freddie's paw, vet costs, pet stories, Amber's separation anxiety |
| 19:27–22:36 | Agent joins; shower-phone engineering; one-year-old birthdays |
| 23:07–33:20 | Ape Fest plans, merch, side events, Dupes' map and schedule |
| 33:46–38:09 | Rooming with Don Diablo; Ape Fest's reputation vs. reality |
| 38:23–49:24 | Trusting founders: doxxing, KOL era, community, experimentation |
| 50:48–58:31 | King Pickle, the Mutual Fund, unruggable contracts, seat strategy |
| 1:00:05–1:07:35 | Ape Chain talent, Otherside as a build platform, J Vegas tours |
| 1:08:44–1:22:11 | Tropical/Mikey's streams, Dupes' videos, grinding, nursing careers |
| 1:15:04–1:26:03 | Bored Osaka joins; dating apps; Pocahose, the condom NFT |
| 1:26:20–1:32:03 | Mutual Fund UGC contest mechanics; Card Wall winner recovery |
| 1:41:21–1:55:32 | Soul on comics and Whatnot; Mike's appendix story; Topps Chrome allocation |
| 1:56:23–2:07:04 | Gary Palmer Jr. on collectibles, Fanatics/Topps, green-eyed cat, Card Wall |
| 2:07:55–2:15:31 | Brrrbon's Beeple feature, football cards, PSA/Beckett grading |
| 2:16:57–2:19:50 | Sign-offs |
Notable quotes
Here's my theory on founders. If they're not present, and if they say I don't work on the weekend and they're not there with their community, like how's your project gonna survive?
So, like essentially it can't be rugged.
Eventually it's gonna stop calling it a video game, and it's gonna be what it's meant to be, which is a platform to build on.
This is the tech that we've all been waiting for for NFTs to onboard the masses.
I just think collectibles are more important than like money, you know. So I mean you gotta pay your bills, you know, minus paying your bills.
It's little, but it means a lot to me, you know.
Who said what
- Mike Campbell (@mikecampbelltv) — host. Opened with the Freddie saga, set the founders topic, walked through Ape Fest logistics, Mutual Fund mint mechanics, Card Wall rules, and a deep dive on Topps Chrome allocation history.
- Dupes (@acdupes) — the night's MVP for substance: shared the Ape Fest map and schedule, made the case for King Pickle and the unruggable contract structure, offered Otherside tours, and explained the UGC contest step by step. Also a nurse of 19+ years, with opinions on nurse practitioner saturation.
- Agent (@agentbye) — cohost, calling in around his daughter's birthday. Argued that community plus visible experimentation is what keeps the space making sense to him, with Stonkbrokers testnet as the example.
- Asun (@AsunMetaX) — joined from a bus, then a library. Pet stories, Australian weather commentary, and early Simple Farmer history from the GM Ape Chain show days.
- Bored Osaka (@BoredOsaka1) — arrived late from work, cheerfully reported on a good date, took the eight-kids bit in stride, and closed the room with his usual call-your-parents sign-off.
- Soul (@SoulInherited_) — VeeFriends comic collector and Whatnot streamer (SOLJ_777); gave the ground-level view of how new breakers and new buyers are distorting comps.
- Gary Palmer Jr. (@garypalmerjr) — headed to NYCC; framed collectibles as a stack of individual market caps and connected the Gary Vee → Fanatics → Topps dots.
- Brrrbon (@Brrrbon_) — card and Magic collector; shared the Beeple feature and plugged his Claynosaurz call the next day at 5pm ET / 2pm PT.
- Smitdog (@SmitdogEth) — dropped in from the Tatakai space, confirmed Mike had the details right, and noted things will slow across the board for a week or so around Ape Fest.
Worth a full listen
- 51:07–58:31 Dupes on founder presence and KP's track record, straight into the mechanics of the Mutual Fund mint and seat-merging strategy. The densest, most actionable stretch of the Space.
- 1:51:01–1:55:32 Soul and Mike on why VeeFriends Whatnot pricing got weird: the 2025-to-2026 allocation shift, more characters diluting hits, and breakers who don't know the product asking chat what it is.
- 1:02:12–1:07:35 The Otherside tangent. Giant solo cup Pong, fire-butt-fart robots, and Dupes' standing offer to hold your hand and walk you in. Summary genuinely cannot do it justice.
