Calaxy launches $1 million fund for creators building decentralized communities

0:01I'm Ashen Addison for Crypto Coin Show and today on blockchain interviews, we have Solo Cece, CEO of Galaxy here to talk about social platforms, content creators taking back the reigns in from the traditional social platforms that are taking all the monetization, all of the platform where you don't really own your fans or your content. How can we change that through

0:26decentralization and web 3 and so much more? Solo, welcome back to the show and thank you for taking the time. Thanks for having me, man. It's always a pleasure. Definitely. I know there's some huge I saw with Galaxy. I'm looking forward to diving into it. I'd love to start off with talking a little bit about what you and the team have built at Galaxy. What

0:48is the social platform and what makes it different? And then we can dive into all the latest updates. Yeah, for sure. I'd say for us, you know, Galaxy at its core primitive functionality is a crypto wallet built with a user experience that we think scales to audiences outside of the world of crypto. If you think about the technology that's built in crypto right

1:09now, it's really built around the vehicle of speculation, wallets and dexes and connecting and swapping and all these things that are just not intuitive to the average person. They don't have a use and there's not really a, you know, crypto is great. You could speculate on, you know, outcomes which people are starting to see like as the early adoption of apps maybe like with

1:29the you know, sort of decentralized betting markets and things like that. Obviously trading and speculation on coins and attention. That's interesting. But those products are really what you know are, you know, being built for those specific use cases, which you know is a tough barrier to entry for most people in the everyday world. And so our mission has

1:50always been about trying to find ways to build decentralized technologies that scale and solve real world problems. You know and so partnering with the likes of the HAR Foundation, Hideera as a blockchain network you know that we you know early got into bed early with they you know with the push to push RWA real world assets, real world use cases. You know,

2:14we see the creator economy as a huge huge huge underexplored opportunity for good reason, right? Like it's a very you know, centralized world. There's a lot of big power, big tech in there. And the bar of you know, the degree of difficulty to build a consumer app worth using is super high. If you think about Instagram, you think about Tik Tok, these are some of the best computer

2:37software, you know, apps that we run. So to try and put that on chain and make it feel nice and fun and move in your hand is very very difficult task. So our company has been spending a lot of years refining that user experience. We're really proud with it or proud of it and the release of worlds really was that final step in decentralization from the product

2:59perspective. There's obviously going to be more things that we do and more behaviors we add on chain, but the large major kind of wow factor of it is really allowing a content creator, community manager, anybody that has, you know, access to a following to really own that following and monetize and control that following on their own terms.

3:18so really trying to build Satoshi like principles into the products we use. Which is true decentralization. I think the problem is everyone's trying to decentralize the same things and we overindex on things that aren't going to scale to larger audiences. Yeah. No, I position to be in that type of platform. You know, everyone inside of crypto and web 3, they're looking for

3:45and investors as well. They're looking for the next killer app that can bring in millions or billions of users. And what better industry than, you know, social media is the top. There's all of the top social media platforms have billions of users. If we can make that perfect concoction where there's a crypto wallet or decentralized functionality with a social platform

4:09that takes off that it could this app could be the key to bringing everybody on chain without a focus on crypto. But of course, I think that there's huge benefits to having a wallet that has digital assets in it in a social platform, which we're not seeing in any of the social platforms right now. Maybe they're not ready, but I feel like the time is coming very

4:30soon. Yeah, absolutely. I think you eloquently stated that because I think when you look at the traditional landscape, it's the you know, the web 2.5 model and like we used to say that last cycle. I don't know if it's really popular anymore, but like the concept of really getting usability principles into the tech that we build. And you know, we really try to take an

4:52Apple-esque approach even though we are by no means the size of Apple or anywhere near as resourced. But I would say that you know, for us, you know, really thinking about Steve Jobs and working with the end consumer and the user experience and then working back to the technology. You have to start there and really build an app worth using. And so for us, our goal

5:12has always really been to build a good app, period. Not just a good crypto app. And I think that's what a lot of people in the industry have focused on. It's like, wow, I could do this with crypto now. Amazing. But it's like, what does that get you versus, oh, wow, my life is better because of this new crypto thing. Like it's a slight nuance and pivot of

5:29thinking thinking that leads to dramatically different outcomes. And so I think for us it's really about you know building that user experience and like I said building a good app period and using decentralization and those principles to fix problems in front of us versus you know trying to create problems to solve with the technology that we've already built,

5:50right? Like that's kind of the problem with our industry. Yeah, I like that approach and I agree. I've used the Galaxy platform and looked into the wallet as well and you really do if you're going to make an application that's going to reach hundreds of millions to billions of users in a social aspect, it can't have all of the crazy functionality that some of these

6:12crypto wallets have in the open with different chains and bridges and swaps, all these things. It really confuses people and turns them off to it. So I do like the current layout of the wallet and I think it's important because especially for content creators, they, you know, they love creating content, but especially those that have a full-time job, they need monetization

6:35as well. And it's great if you're getting any funds for your content, but I would much rather have it in a wallet that I control that I don't have to pay funds to PayPal or the bank transfer all this stuff and 100%. And it's just it's going to be so much easier when we have a digital asset wallet in social. But there's that balance that to make sure

6:58that it has the experience that you're talking about without having too much functionality or the appear appearance of too much functionality that scares people. Yeah, absolutely. And it's really going back to just solving for the market demand, right? Like I think there is a huge market demand for decentralized banking options amongst retail people

7:18even out the west in the states. Like I think there are people that would want to bank themselves if they had better user experiences. is I think people are starting to wake up to the to the true ethos of decentralization and understand it from a from like a core my life has now changed like the increased views of censorship and that kind of stuff in the

7:38country and the education around those things which we just had been you know really oblivious to in the west for a long time especially in the states and so I think you know we're like you've mentioned the opportunity is coming but it must be tastefully done and like for us as a bar you know we've always wanted to really make sure that whatever we ship ships, you know, it's

7:57it's great and it's fun to use and it feels like a fun product. And, you know, that's the hard part is there's a lot of alphas, datas, test flights, all these things in crypto and people really overindex on, you know, the going a mile deeper in the crypto niche versus trying to think about, you know, hey, does this user experience even make sense from like a philosophical

8:18standpoint? Like, if you could choose to do anything, would you do that? like you know do you think Satoshi thought the end crypto wallet would still work like it does today or would he have thought that or they have thought of this being a different type of you know user experience altogether it was just the you know the concept and the

8:38ideologies that are super valuable obviously but then you know I think it's on the industry to take it forward and really solve real world problems and you know bitcoin has done a great job of that obviously I think in the in the in the grander grander scheme things. I think people can argue about the technology and all these things, but I think if you truly understand the

8:56purpose of it and what it's meant to represent and the problems it's meant to solve with things like hyperinflation and like you know the inability for people to build wealth over time. It does a great job at those two things and I think that's a there's a huge market for that. And I think there's a lesson to be learned there. And so

9:15finding a way to create that, you know, one that one, you know, that super app, if you will, is another way to look at it, too, just because, you know, Elon and X, they're trying to build a lot of the things that Galaxy does, right? Like the things of being able to send money back and forth to someone or spend, you know, money on the platform to buy

9:33something, right? Like merchant and all that stuff. And it's a lot harder to build that from the web two vertical because you're becoming a bank in doing that. But when you're a wallet, you're the opposite of a bank and you're able to able to, you know, allow people to make these types of engagements happen in an easy, you know, way. And so, like, there's a whole world where

9:52Galaxy becomes popular because it's like the easiest, most fun crypto wallet to use like a Venmo or Zel, right? Like it could be that. But it could also be because a creator like, you know, maybe Joe Rogan comes here and he's like, "You know what? I don't want to be on Spotify anymore. I'm going to go direct consumer and launch my own app for my podcast."

10:10like that could be cool too, right? Like I think for us, we've built such a such a large platform that abstracts away the complexities of blockchain and really surfaces them up. And because blockchain as a core, you know, ownership as a core, you know, pillar is so powerful. I think when you service that up to the creators, creators, I think you're creating a completely different paradigm

10:31from, you know, what exists in social media right now. Like people in social media are creating for the algorithm. They're all starting to look and sound and talk the same. That's the point of an algorithm. It's conforming people to ideals. Whereas there's dangers in that. Whereas worlds is really the opposite of that. People that are going to have popular worlds are going to be people

10:50that are celebrated for being different, which is what being a creator is about when you think about it, right? And that's the importance and power in decentralization. That's amazing. And I wanted to hone in further on content creation in general because nowadays everyone is a content creator. Whether they're just posting family photos or they're being an

11:11influencer with millions of followers and there's a lot of issues in the traditional mainstream social media platforms. You're right, they're maybe they're not creating what they want because they're trying to figure out the algorithm and maximize views based on whatever code is in the back end of Instagram that says, you know, this is what should be popular. Let's try to do

11:34whatever they want. And then as well the accumulating followers and then your account gets flagged or banned for some reason and you know now that connection between you and your fans has been severed. You just lost all of your progress and all your connection. There's many other issues as well but those are two that I can think of. Can you talk about the difference in why

11:58content creators would want to use a platform like Galaxy and Worlds as opposed to traditional Instagram for example? Yeah, absolutely. And I think you know and I say a lot of this stuff because I think social media as as as polarizing and as you know varied the outcomes can be per people, right? there's a lot of people or you know a growing percentage of people that have

12:20concerns about the mental health issues and all these things now that we're 15 20 years into it. I think there like I mentioned there's there's there's a lot of different varied outcomes but I will say that I think from a communication standpoint and a world connectivity standpoint yes there are concerns about how things are policed or how things are unregulated or

12:42regulated or influenced or controlled by the parties at be. I think it has been a huge major you know human like achievement of humankind right of mankind to be able to talk and converse and interact and cooperate and collaborate sorry as easy as we can do from you know how far we are away from each other and so I think that's a marvel and I still think there's great

13:06power and distribution power of traditional social platforms so I'd say from a content creators perspective I don't see Galaxy as competitive compitive with Instagram or Twitter. We're not trying to be those things at all. Actually, I think we are you know trying to be the home or hub or you know central spot for a creator to really you know like I mentioned or like

13:28you talk about build their own sort of hub or their own sort of community away from the platform where they can really be themselves with their community. They can monetize themselves within their community. They can mobilize their community. There's an NFT ticketing feature that's coming soon. I see a world where an artist stays independent forever because they built a

13:51large tribe in their world and they're going on tour and doing shows and making that stuff cool again. Versus having a record label tell you what you're worth and, you know, obviously exploit exploit the artist. So I see there's a like like I mentioned, I think that Galaxy is one of those unique tools that isn't built for, you know,

14:11the corporate consumption that is like a traditional social platform. At this point, the algorithm is heavily directed by, you know, the stakeholders and the overall objectives of this group. And if you think about shareholders and maximum profitability and all these different types of things, you know, that heavily impacts like what the end product needs to be for advertisers to

14:30be on the platform and all these things. So that's going to end up trickling all the way down to what impacts like a creator's ability to do something. And so I think for us it's really about trying to solve that and create that home away from home so to speak where creators can feel comfortable and complete control. And it's a tall task, right? Followers are

14:51everything to creators, right? And so we want to create a hub that you know it's tough because you these people view them as their lifeline which they are. These people being creators view their audience like their lifeline as they are. So that's why we spend so much time building the user experience and the platform capabilities we have to really

15:08you know make sure they're in good hands when they bring people to their world. Definitely. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing more people that aren't in crypto use the platform and then all of a sudden they see the benefits of the crypto wallet or even just sending stable coins. You know, they don't have to be investing in small cap coins or bitcoin even, you

15:30know, just sending stable coins to other creators and to their fans back and forth. Their fans are paying them directly. I know that's a great monetization feature that I love as a content creator u on Galaxy and no other social has that. So there was a huge announcement at South by Southwest. I had the honor of being there as well and you know that's South by

15:52Southwest is it's it's barely crypto. It's everything. But I think social and content creators is a huge part of it now. And I saw in person Galaxy was there. You announced a million dollar grant or fund for content creators on Galaxy. That's huge. I don't think any other social or engagement platform has done that before. Can you talk about that

16:15announcement? What that means for content creators and how it works? Yeah, absolutely. So we are going to be you know selecting and inducting 50 creators of all different verticals from all parts of the world into our inaugural class. And the goal here is really to invest in the independence of creators and really proving out the mission that we're on which is you know

16:38giving creators that extra push of support and resources to really take their content to the next level and professionalize what it means being a content creator, right? like they're it's it's a lot different now, but even when you know probably we were in high school around that age, like the concept of like I'm going to be a full-time, you know, social media person, that was

16:57crazy. Now we have a lot of people that do it, but if you look around the fringes, how much has the platform really changed and like the professionalization of the profession, like has it changed? And I'd say it has shockingly not with how many people make their money on social media and like how fragile that can be and how you know fickle algorithms can be and how easily

17:18you can be you know canceled so to speak from the algorithm or the or the people. It's not a way to live and build a sustainable business, right? And I think for us, you know, we're trying to build tools that allow content creators to escape that kind of added dynamic. And it's really about, you know, with worlds like the concept of us trying to have

17:35this conversation in a noisy restaurant or in a place completely away from everyone where it's just you and that other person, right? Everyone could be open and have access to that. So, you could be in a glass box like Severance was when it was filming in New York. You could literally have a world that's like that up for the public or you could have

17:53a world that's underground that no one has access to unless you give them a code to get in. And so it's really bringing that sort of, you know, parallel from real life into social media because social media and we have to remind ourselves time and time again, it's not a representation of real life and it's not a, you know, a healthy particular profession in certain

18:14ways because of how stressful it can be. And so for us spending our time with the creators like we have the fund is really meant to create a robust you know diversified group of people that are looking to take their content to the next level and really monetize you know content in the you know for the first time too. It could be somebody

18:33that's really popular that hasn't really found a way to monetize their content. And it's really about incubating a accelerator and a online social club if you will for creators that are you know really likeminded and focused and you know this is just the first class and we're excited about what's to come. Yeah. No, it's really exciting and I hope that those that

18:53aren't in crypto see this as you know not not just a crypto platform just a social platform that allows them to take back their fans and their connections and their content as well. And so with that is there is there a focus on any specific industries for example sports people can come on makeup anybody who's posting any type of content on any

19:17social media is there a limitation who yeah the platform wants galaxy yeah no we want everybody you know I think for us we see ourselves as one of the few bridge type projects and we see Galaxy as really the bridge to web two like entirely I think we see Galaxy as iOS us for crypto like this is the first good operating system attached to onchain application that is commercial

19:41right and so I think because of that we really want our creator class to be representative of that so like chefs makeup fitness sports even trade crypto if that's you know like there's space for that too there's a lot but I think you know what the industry is really missing and is looking forward to is you know regular people using crypto and proving

20:05out its you know capabilities because right now I think as an industry as much as there's been progress and we're excited about the new you know the new I guess you know not blanketly but I think people are more optimistic about what this new administration has in terms of you know an affinity for exploring new technologies and emerging spaces. So I think that should be

20:28good for us and that should, you know, potentially in the next couple years we should start seeing more startups have the confidence to really, you know, take on a similar mission like ours to try and make these technologies usable. It's just tough because over the last 5 years there are only so many people that would have had the, you know, the risk

20:45appetite to dive in when things were as murky as they were. But yeah, we want creators from all different verticals, all different age groups. You know just want to make sure that we open up the opportunity for everybody and really allowing these types of resources to empower the next generation of entrepreneurally minded CEO-minded creators. That's

21:08amazing. And you mentioned a few minutes back about sort of it feels nostalgic now of when social media wasn't that big and I think people were it was the focus on YouTube like I'm going to become a YouTuber, you know, I'm going to make I'm going to make videos and we're going to make it a full-time job and now it's I think a lot of people taking it

21:26for granted at first that were in professional industries. They're like that's not that's not a job, but now it clearly is. And so you mentioned there that you don't actually have to already be a major influencer. Like if you want to be, you know, if you want to start from your job and be a YouTuber, you could start on Galaxy and still apply for the grant. You don't have to

21:49have a million followers. Is that right? No, there are no requirements like that. I mean, I do think for us the goal is really to try like all things are take into account like the use case, like what people are looking to do. Obviously, as a platform, we're trying to drive traffic and try and find and identify people with communities. But that doesn't necessarily mean like

22:08there's a lot of influencers that don't have a mobilizable like community, right? Like there's a difference between an influencer and creator. And I think that's why we try to emphasize creators. Because there are a lot of midsize creators that have sub 100,000 followers that really have fans that show up for them and could make use of tools

22:26like that. And that's the best kind of marketing you could ever have as a platform. So for us it's really about finding those really really good use cases and so everyone should be encouraged to apply but obviously people that have you know strong use cases a strong sense of what they would want to do with those extra resources and a plan because that's the most

22:45important thing is identifying people that have like a concerted plan. Definitely. So, if there are content creators, especially outside of crypto, they want to apply for this million-dollar fund, how do they get started in doing that? Yeah, if they go to the website, there's a there's a apply for the grant link, and it's a quick little survey that

23:07people do. But, you know, the more thought you put into it, the better. And it's really just our way of getting to know the creators, and you know, it's a it's a pretty involved thing, right? like and it's meant to be a boot camp that really helps and engage and really is a mind share opportunity, right? Like if you're in this class, you're going to meet some really cool

23:26creators from all over the world that are doing really cool interesting things with content. And we want our brand to be associated with that too, right? Like imagine if Soho House was still cool, right? Like that kind of concept. But for creators and like a creator network and that kind of thing. So that's that's where we are with it and we're we're excited about you know

23:43the people that we can have joining. Definitely. I love that part because I think a lot of people they don't realize the potential and value of networks especially when you have you're in the content creator class of like masterminds of content you're going to be surrounded in good company so it's more than just you know moving to a new platform to monetize your audience the

24:06network has a lot of value in it as well 100% 100% arguably more right like I think and we as much as we spent on the platform and trying to build and make it nice and fun to use and stuff. At the end of the day, the most important thing is like how people feel and users and all those things, right? Like, and I think our company wants to, you know, we've been trying to put a lot

24:28of the work in, but we want to be known as a company that ships good product and does good business by creators. Very simple as that. And so, I think this class is a is a really big monumental step in that. And the release of worlds is a huge step towards decentralization and putting power back in the hands of creators. I love that solo. And with the

24:48worlds, can you talk about that more? I think a lot of people it might be a foreign concept. They're just used to having a profile and having a feed and posting. So what is the difference with Galaxy Worlds? Yeah, so worlds are interesting in that so you have Galaxy app which is its own application. It's actually a progressive web app. So you will not

25:07find it in the app store. you go to galaxy.com, save it down to your home screen. And a lot of people don't build progressive web apps because it's just more challenging to build a fun product on web that moves like you're dealing with like a Safari browser instance when you're dealing with Galaxy, right? You're not dealing with like the native iOS, you know, product

25:27that people usually develop on top of in traditional app development. So that made our degree of difficulty a little bit harder. you don't have a lot of those baked in animations. You have to work on those kind of things extra-handed. So, shout out my product team, Chad and Ryan. They do great work. And really, you know, they do above and beyond with taking, you know, a PWA

25:47and really pushing it to the limit. So, it feels native because, when we first shipped Galaxy, it didn't necessarily feel all that native. It felt still like a little bit weblike and now it's starting to feel like a damn good, regular application. But worlds, like I mentioned before, is about community ownership and complete control and self- sovereignty.

26:08And so each creator on Galaxy can create their own world, which is their own community, kind of like a Discord or like Twitter communities, if you will. But each of these communities are installable apps within themselves as well. So, you could create a world and then have that world be an installable app because it's also a PWA itself. And you could fire that out,

26:30that link out to your friends, friends, set put in as a link into your bio. And now you can sort of usher people from your audience directly to your world. And when users come in, they sign up, they create an account for that world, which is still a basic Galaxy account. And they can go from world to world and discover galaxy from a creator's world. A world can also be

26:50discovered within Galaxy. So you have this back and forth sort of user experience. I like to equate it to like Rick and Morty where you have the portal gun that Rick has and it allows you to go from, you know, dimension to dimension and your portal gun is your galaxy account and each world is its own dimension controlled by the creator and whoever you know lives there and you're

27:10visiting their home space or you may not be have access to because you don't have the credentials. You may not have an NFT in your wallet. You may not be have been invited. You might not have the money to pay on, you know, a subscription basis, whatever it can be, or it's just open and you can hop in and see what's going on. So it's really

27:27about creating that online social club, if you will, for creators that allow them to really take ownership of the relationships they have. It's very cool, Solo. I think this there's part of the future of social media and people are waking up, especially with the monetization as it gets harder, that they're looking for new ways to monetize. And I do know that, you know,

27:50I've I've tried out Galaxy and there's a lot of different little functions in there that aren't on any other social platform. And of course, the creator fund of a million dollars is really nice as well. With that announcement that has happened in the last couple weeks here, is there a limited time frame until that closes or they're chosen? you

28:11know, obviously people should probably jump on it right away, but you know, what are you guys looking at in terms of agency applying? I'm pretty sure it's done on a rolling basis, and I'm saying pretty sure because obviously we're pretty fairly large organization at this point, so I don't have all the details in front of me, but it's a the TLDDR of it is a rolling

28:32basis and we're looking to announce, you know, a good cohort or the entire class by South by Southwest London. we had the announcement at South by South by South by Southwest in Austin. And so that's essentially like the skinny on that hopefully will be exciting to see all the different types of creators that we get in and stuff.

28:51And yeah, because it's rolling, it's probably better to be at it sooner than later. Your odds just get worse as time goes. But yeah, I would say that's you know a little bit about that on the program. That's amazing. Well, I'll be looking forward to that. South by Southwest South by Southwest London announcement. I'm gonna also put the original announcement from

29:13South by Southwest in the show notes below. And for people that want to follow along with the other updates for Galaxy and learn more about it and get on the platform as well as applying for the million-dollar fund, what is the best way to stay on top of all of that? Yeah, I'd say our X account is like the most current with updates. We're also

29:35getting big on Tik Tok because that's where the rest of the world lives. Tik Tok is you know, not the crypto Twitter echo chamber. So, you know, we want to be a project that's known outside of crypto. Like, you know, that's the whole point. But yeah, I'd say Twitter is a really good place. Like I said, we ship updates there all the time. We just released a new update

29:55for chat yesterday. So chat's got a huge facelift. It's meant to feel like a iMessage experience. You have replies in there, emoji reactions, audio messages, GIFs, you have a lot of cool stuff that just got in the chat manager as well. So, that's going to be a really big part. So, like chat is where most of the code for the app lives. You can, like I said, send

30:18requests for fan creator relationships, send crypto. Soon you'll send USD as well, memes, pictures, videos, gifts, audio messages. It's a very textured messaging experience. Like imagine if your WhatsApp can now send crypto. It's basically the directive we had. Lots of things to come there. But yeah, crypto I mean sorry Twitter is the easiest place to stay up to date with

30:43the release stuff and you know our website is and then also on Tik Tok. We're getting more active there. Love that. Well, I'm gonna go check out the Tik Tok. see if you guys are doing any dances on there and all that other fun stuff outside of crypto which I know is super important for adoption of web 3 platforms. You know, I think the killer web 3 blockchain app people don't

31:06won't know it's built on blockchain. They won't know. They'll just see they're sending, you know, funds through the social and they're finding new ways to monetize and importantly owning their own content and their own worlds. So, wishing you and the team at Galaxy all the best solo on continuing to grow this. Congratulations on launching this million-dollar fund. I'm

31:27going to put the details in the show notes below and check that out myself as well. And would love to follow up again in the near future. Awesome. Thank you. It's always great being on the show. Super excited.