Fournier at ETH Denver

0:00You can clip it on your jacket. I didn’t even see the clip. This is the first interview I think I’ve done. Ever? Yeah, I think so. Stop playing with him. Foreign from Newark leading the wave. Stop playing with him. Oh, that’s good that you can clean it. I probably should have read the instructions harder on here when I opened it. Because I definitely didn’t know you could open this. They used to call myself a champion. I know, I used to call myself a champion. That was my Instagram bio for a while, just period champion. This girl said, what are men? And I said champions. She didn’t

0:32like that. I think I called women whores the same day. It was a bad week. This is crazy.

0:46It takes three niggas to figure that out though.

0:53You know we gotta do data collection. Data collection is not complete. Yeah, you can hold it. I’m done. No, no, no, I have my harritos. All right, everybody. Okay, okay, okay. We’re out here at ETH Denver and with another episode We Them Niggas Podcast, here today I’m with Fournier, connected with Fournier back in September, shout out to Chris on his birthday, went to the Dot Connector event in New York, and we connected with Fournier there, and circled back, talked about ETH Denver, he said, oh, we’re sliding to ETH Denver, let me get into B&B, and joined the B&B, he did, I appreciate you pulling up, I appreciate you being interested in what we’re doing with the podcast, thinking about how you can support, and really just holding space for community, living with us and everything, like I appreciate the

1:38the way you shared space with us and the way you, you know, participated in the fellowship that this is, this is community building and I feel like you get that. So how was your experience in Denver been this year? It was great. It was great. Thank you for, you know, inviting, like, you know, staying with me and working with me and everything, bringing me into your ecosystem. Um, yeah, I mean, I just, I learned more about crypto than I anticipated that I learned. I realized I was part of communities that, you know, it was more going on than what meets the eye, you know Being a part of

2:14You mean we have motion like this? Yeah, I mean I had motion too and, you know, we just, we got the ball rolling, all of us together, you know Because I was doing, I mean, I’m still currently enrolled in this program The second cohort of Near Protocol, Horizon Accelerator and it’s great to be with them. Shout out to Jared Barnes. Shout out to Jared. Okay. Yeah. How’s that experience been? How was this? How has the accelerator been? And how did it shape that experience further? It’s been great just meeting everybody in real life so far. You know, you usually work digitally, you know, and it’s just a lot of writing, taking notes and,

2:56you know, data collection, testing things out, you know, building on top of, you know, work that’s It’s already been done in a new type of way and meeting everybody in real life, it’s just, it puts the cherry on top, you know what I mean? Because it’s really been a great program to be a part of. We had a private dinner with everybody in the second cohort that could make it. Met a lot of people from my team, you know, because everybody’s remote all over the world in different places. So that was great. And yeah, I mean, I’d love to come back. You know, we, it was,

3:34is a great experience. I’m happy to hear that. I think it’s a, I think like what you said, the cherry on top component. I do feel like a big part of Web3 for me has been like recognizing that the URL turns into IRL Web3 in a way that I’ve never really seen in any other like internet space I participated in. Yeah. And so being able to come here and see folks from Kernel, which I really didn’t get to go to their dinner, but that’s what I was interested in doing, but the car broke down and things happened. But getting to meet more people that I’ve seen in 40 Acres DAO, people that I’ve seen online

4:01on Instagram, Telegram, I would say for me that was definitely a highlight. and even get into, like I said, like you said, really bringing you into the ecosystem per se, you’re getting to meet Julian, you’re getting to meet Gabrielle, you met Drew before, and it’s just been, it’s been cool, yeah, to see you become part of our community and, yeah, I’m excited to see what else you’re up to this year. Walking away from ETH Denver, what do you feel like are your primary takeaways? The primary takeaways from eDenver is there’s always more to learn about what you can do and, you know, make your ecosystem better.

4:36Skills are important to, you know, realize the skills you have and realize when you lead and when you follow, you know. and there’s really a lot of different ways that crypto is being applied now but it still hasn’t been applied or it doesn’t necessarily even have to be just crypto technology in general which is blockchain you know or AI whatever the case may be it was it was really great I got that and I’d be really interested if you could share my audience like kind of How you got into Web3? How did you even end up at Ethernet or at Dock Connector? How did Web3 and crypto become a part of your life?

5:19Okay, great. So I started with crypto, like seriously, like a job wise in probably about 2021. 21, I invested earlier in that, in the bull run in like 2017, caught Bitcoin at a decent price, you know, and invested like a decent amount, like over 50% of, you know, what Bitcoin was. So, and then it went up to 20k that year, got out of that, and then I joined PubDAO later on So, that’s what made me interested in the first place, just catching Bitcoin at the right time And, you know, seeing the price go up and, you know, the mass, like, hysteria around it And, you know, and then now, in 2024, we have the Bitcoin ETFs, you know

6:24So, it’s just interesting to see the transformation of the space and how rapidly it happened, you know? And what would you say has been a core memory of your journey from, you say, like 2017 to now? A core memory of a journey is just seeing all the progress of the people that I’ve known in, you know, just technology in general, whether it’s crypto or, you know, blockchain, AI. I mean the decentralized aspect of everything really just changes the dynamic you know what I mean so I mean yeah that’s the best memory is just seeing seeing the growth and the new ideas and you know the different ways we interact the different ideas now you know and just create a whole different dynamic I got that I got that I guess my final question really be to like someone in Newark

7:27per se, who doesn’t know anything about crypto. What would your advice be to them if they’re interested in getting in this space? It’s always the Internet is the most powerful thing, but it’s also the most dangerous thing. You know, you just got to do research. There’s always new companies being created, new technologies being discovered. And it’s all out there. And if you research it and find stuff that you like on the Internet, when you see it in real life, you know, it’ll make you want to, you know, do do what you’re doing, even on a greater scale. you know, so I say research, teach yourself as much as you can, you know, and recognize

8:04what gifts you have and use those to your advantage, you know, and try to help other people as well, you know, make sure that it’s a win-win situation where everybody you’re working with, you know, and anything’s possible, you know what I mean? You could live in a city like Newark or never leave the block for 20, 25 years or, you know what I’m saying, you you could get your passport and, you know, see what’s really out there, you know, and don’t take it for granted being so close to your resources, you know what I mean? So all that together, it means like anything’s possible, you know, and you can reach any,

8:43any goal, any, any height, you know, that you aspire to be at, you know? All right, my man. Well, I appreciate that. And I encourage people, like he’s saying, to do the research and to find communities like like this one, where you can find people who do want to, you know, pay it forward, learning we’ve been doing and the teaching we’ve been doing. So shout out to you for being here. Shout out to you for being a proponent of people, educating themselves on what’s available using the Internet. This hugely powerful resource, you know, I feel like I really didn’t start really learning about on the Internet until it came to crypto.

9:10I’m not going to lie. I feel like in high squatting, use YouTube to learn math. I wish I had. I feel like, but when it came to crypto, I was like, I’m watching every YouTube video I can find. Yeah, I figure out where these airdrops come from. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, like airdrops, even that, that’s like something new, that it’s like, it’s so much out there and you just got to do the research, you know what I mean? To find the opportunities Yeah, people farm airdrops and they make so much money, you can make six figures, you know what I mean? Yeah And it all depends on how you apply yourself, as far as you could reach is what your imagination can like see, you know what I mean?

9:48So, it can, anything can happen You just gotta really believe that you can do it And put in the work, and get out there And go after it, you know You can’t just hope for it to happen You gotta actually go make it happen Yeah, and take the feedback Make it happen and take the feedback So yeah, everybody, thank you for tuning in to another episode We Them Niggas, thank you for in the end