PANDAPALS ROUNDTABLE 🐼

Host: Panda (@PandaPals__) with cohost Curtis Gore (@curtisgore) · Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2026 · Duration: ~8h28m across two parts (the room rugged and was restarted) · ~22 speakers

TL;DR

• Today marked the one-year anniversary of the Panda Pals NFT collection (token launched 15 July, NFTs 24 Aug); Panda announced the mint flow is now "buttery smooth," the two websites are being merged into one, and cross-chain (Solana→Base) minting and an app are next.
• The room's running theme was alignment: a psychology article on how "character flaws" become strengths in the right environment sparked long, personal stories from Kerry, Joseph, NoCredits, Waldo, Rocky and Billabong.
• Heavy creatives-are-undervalued thread — A-VOID, Kerry and Rocky on starving-artist economics, and Rocky revealing he turned down a $250K Warner record deal in 2013.
• Market read was cautiously bullish-but-suspicious: BTC pushing ~$80K, fear/greed back at extreme greed (~83), several speakers flagging a possible bull trap and watching a ~$74K retest.
• Lots of base vs Robinhood chain talk, plus one eye's take on the B20 standard for enterprise.
• Peak entertainment: a national-waffle-day referendum, an air-fryer/waffle-maker tangent, Waldo's arrested rubber duck, and Liquid Vision reading out an eight-minute lucid dream.

Highlights

The Great Waffle Referendum [P1 16:00] — Panda turned the room into a live emoji poll (laughing = waffles, surprised = pancakes) after Curtis casually endorsed both "with peanut butter and syrup." Near clean sweep for waffles; Cap was declared "team hot dog," and Panda kept apologizing for being behind on comments while everyone weighed in.

Waffle makers, air fryers, and Global Waffle Day [P1 20:05] — Kerry insisted a waffle maker is a $20 marketplace find; NoCredits (in New Zealand) countered that the only one he could find was palm-sized — "that's not a waffle, that's a cookie." The tangent rolled into air-fryer evangelism and Kerry's warning not to "throw a whole turkey or a baby into it," before Kilo unilaterally upgraded the occasion to International/Global Waffle Day.

Red pandas aren't pandas [P1 25:46] — Curtis, riding his one-of-one red panda "Coda," delivered off-the-cuff research: red pandas are more closely related to raccoons, skunks and weasels than bears, and are roughly house-cat sized. Panda used it to tee up upcoming PFP contests and the collection's one-of-ones.

Product roadmap [P1 31:14] — Panda walked through the weekend's work: a streamlined one-click mint, merging pandapals.io and pandapump.io into one site (with the token/contract address surfaced), fixing mobile staking, and shipping a utility-based app. The stated end goal: mint from a Phantom/Solana wallet with all bridging handled natively.

"Flaws as strengths" gets deep [P1 1:12:04 → 1:19:30] — The core topic. Kerry described over-helping people to the point of self-sabotage, and how choosing the right people turned it healthy. Joseph reframed his anger, fear and hypervigilance as signals, describing a somatic map (gut = lived truth, heart = desire) he uses to read intentions "before it ever has a chance to ruin a good thing."

NoCredits' Air Force story [P1 1:31:53] — The standout arc of Part 1: a "model student" who couldn't tolerate bad bosses, made New Zealand's top 90 pilot applicants, and was told he'd be a great pilot but a terrible officer. Twenty-five years of running his own photography business later, he concluded the Air Force was right — and that the flaw was really a fit problem.

AI, brain rot and education [P1 2:55:23 → 3:01:16] — Sparked by Norway restricting AI for under-13s, the room got reflective. Panda shared his own anti-atrophy habits (spelling words out five times, ditching Google Maps). Toasty admitted that even as an AI content maker with kids, "it's even affecting a grown four-year-old man." One eye described using AI as an executive-style personal coach while catching himself over-relying on it for maps around a city he grew up in.

Rocky refuses the record deal [P2 52:17] — In Part 2's most personal stretch, Rocky explained turning down a quarter-million-dollar Warner contract in 2013 because it would have handed his best songs to others and buried him in controlled debt. His extended metaphor — artists as cattle whose pens are "closed one by one" (Live Nation, streaming cuts, subsidized "negative music") — landed hard.

Waldo's arrested duck & the inception of Peanut [P2 3:12:24] — Deep in DGen hours, Waldo (now a Yucky Duck holder) explained his rubber duck "got arrested," that he intends to harbor the fugitive duck in Florida rather than snitch, and recapped a 10-hour space where the crew allegedly planted a getting-arrested dream in a sleeping Peanut, then confirmed it live the next day.

Liquid Vision's "Green Room" dream [P2 4:23:05] — Liquid read out a fully-recalled eight-minute lucid dream (highways surfed on your stomach, an orange goose-sauce river, a tank battle against Russians, vampire-demons in a black-hole house) tied to his Dream Drifter journaling app and a crowdsourced "global dream experiment." A-VOID recommended the film Waking Life as a companion.

Notable quotes

• "I like waffles and pancakes, and I like them with peanut butter and syrup." — Curtis [P1 15:52]
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• "I could not find a waffle maker that was a decent size… I'm like, that's not a waffle, that's a cookie." — NoCredits [P1 20:05]
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• "Every boss I worked for was an idiot, and I ended up working for myself, and the Air Force got it right." — NoCredits [P1 1:32:00]
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• "Everything and anything is art if you have an open enough mind." — Waldo [P1 2:31:46]
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• "You can't command somebody to express their free will to dance on the spot with their entire soul." — Rocky [P2 57:22]
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• "I ask, can you teleport me directly behind the wife and child? The eye responds, sure I can, douchebag." — Liquid Vision, reading his dream [P2 4:34:19]
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Topic timeline

Who said what

• Panda (@PandaPals__) — Host. Ran the topic, gave the product roadmap and market color, and did most of the connective monologuing (which he self-diagnosed as his own "flaw turned strength").
• Curtis Gore (@curtisgore) — Cohost, dialing in from the car and then home; window-tint pro, red-panda "Coda" holder, and heavily into the good token.
• keRRy (@kerrymcook) — Comic engine of Part 1 (weed chat, echo, Global Waffle Day); in Part 2 spoke seriously on artists being underpaid and the gifted-program conspiracy.
• Waldo (@waldoforrealz) — Artist/community builder; on transmuting depression into pixel art (no stylus, tapping pixels on an Android), the "for reels" saga, and the arrested-duck bit. Hosting an impromptu builders space Tuesday 2pm.
• NoCredits (@NoCredits_) — Joining early from New Zealand; delivered the Air Force / own-boss arc; project minting 10 Sept; recommended magnific.ai and A-VOID's high-res prints.
• Joseph (@TrudoJo) — Framed anger/hypervigilance as somatic signals; market view: banks will dump then scoop up Bitcoin.
• Kilo S (@KiloSilo47) — Newer holder soaking up the ecosystem; coined "Global Waffle Day" and asked about panda ATMs.
• OneEyedWillie (@WilliamPordobel) — Multi-chain "maxi," backer of Midas/good; on AI-as-coach, the B20 enterprise standard, and his Florida/Panama/California life; deep gifted-program riff with Rocky and Billabong.
• Toastymfer (@ewwwtoasty1) — Homeschooling parent on base; candid that he's both wary of and contributing to AI slop.
• Lil Southern Mama (@Lilsassmouth) — "When mama cooks, mama cooks for an army" — everyone gets waffles.
• Rocky (@Rockchilld3) — The emotional core of Part 2: record-deal refusal, "cattle pens" metaphor, Mr. Van Hallen saving zoo animals from a burning school; birthday floats down the river.
• A-VOID (@AVOID_TheArtist) — Australian graphic designer/artist behind "dead punks"; on creatives capping at ~$95K AUD and NFTs handing power back to artists.
• Billabong (@BillabongM) — Detailed market TA (74K retest, Solana ETF inflows) plus a moving childhood story (six first-grade teachers, dyslexia) that became a room-reading superpower.
• Rachel (@RachelCreates) — On-chain media/events; hosted Cars, Crypto & Coffee; moving to Florida; sees optimism returning to the timeline.
• Peanut (@peanutt) — Trencher's read on new energy and risk-taking; namechecked the Inc chain; good-natured victim of the dream-inception bit.
• Luca (Midas) — Guested on the good/Midas launch and community-first, decentralized building.
• Tom Bibiyan (@realtombibiyan) — Comedy-shaped host (Conan/Letterman influence), ex-Wall Street PR; NYC-vs-LA professionalism; praised the room for separating the performer from the person.
• Liquid Vision (@LiquidVisionX) — New cage-welding job; read the "Green Room" dream and detailed the Dream Drifter app / global dream experiment.
• PACO (@PACObscOg), VEXE (@vexe_5), Trash (@Trash_On_Base) — Late voices: Paco pitched his community-CTO'd BSC dog meme; Vexe checked in from Europe (stopped by police on a 4am run, no AC); Trash shared a Beefy Finance LP lesson.

Worth a full listen

• [P2 4:23:05] – [P2 4:35:19] — Liquid Vision's "Green Room" dream in full. No summary captures the surreal, cinematic detail (or the eyeball's deadpan "sure I can, douchebag"). Followed by a genuinely interesting exchange on lucid dreaming and the Dream Drifter app.
• [P2 3:52:19] – [P2 3:57:19] — The origin story of the round table. Waldo and Panda recount the space that let Panda up to shill, then rugged him mid-sentence and laughed — the moment Waldo DM'd "let's just host our own." Good on the "why we build in public" ethos.
• [P2 52:17] – [P2 57:22] — Rocky on the record deal and the "cattle pens." The clearest, most affecting statement of the whole night's undercurrent about artists, ownership and selling your essence.