Introduction to Ryan Tanaka

Speaker 1 0:11

Welcome to TezDocs . I'm Blangs , and today we're talking with Ryan Tanaka . If you've spent any time in the Tezos Arts space , you've probably seen his name . He's part of the Te'a Dao which grew out of Hickett Noonk , and he also runs Taya Cafe , his own personal project . We're going to talk about how Taya has changed . What Ryan's been building lately and some of the new projects he's been working on with Joe Simon Should be a good one . Ryan . Thanks for joining us . How's your week been Pretty ?

Speaker 2 0:41

good ? Yeah , thanks for having me on . How's your week been Pretty good ? Yeah , thanks for having me on . You might notice in the background I'm going to be moving in a few weeks , so you know everything's kind of dismantled right now , but you know it's exciting . A lot of things are changing and a lot of things I think are going to happen over the next few months . So which ? Includes Tesla stuff , yeah , anything fun or unexpected going on outside of work ? Uh , you mean by work as in , like outside of tezos ?

Speaker 1 1:12

yeah , I mean you said you're moving oh yeah .

Speaker 2 1:15

Yeah , I'm moving to a new neighborhood . It's called , like the central district , seattle area . It seems like a , you know , kind of like a up and coming neighborhood . So yeah , you know , and I visited there a few times and you know , I give it a shot , so we'll see .

Speaker 1 1:32

Now for people who might not know you yet . How did you first get involved in the Tezos Art Space ?

From Music to Tezos Art Space

Speaker 2 1:40

Oh well it was . I got in around the time Hicketnunk , you know , it blew up really really big right , like a few years ago , and then a friend of mine told me , oh , you got to really check this out . And so I got in around the same time Like Hicketnunk was kind of like going down but teah , uh popped up . You know , and that whole story of like people taking what they love and rebuilding it , you know , like out of the ashes right , kind of that kind of thing . It really inspired me . So it's in . And I come from a music background . If you don't know already , I'm a musician and a composer . But that whole thing I got kind of sucked into and eventually became part of the core team because , you know , I just love the people there so much .

Speaker 1 2:39

So that's the short story of it . Yeah , you were there as part of the transition from Hickenoek to Taya . What was that like from the inside ?

Speaker 2 2:48

It was pretty crazy because , you know , something like this has never really happened before , right , and so everyone was just trying to figure out as things going along . But you know like , for example , even the name T teah right , the teah itself was voted on , and that there must have been at least several hundred , maybe even a thousand people who voted on , like that , that poll , and you did it on chain , right , so so the record is there and they're like yeah , so they're out of six names , they chose one and yeah , and the rest is history .

Speaker 1 3:31

So you say they operate under a DAO . What's one thing people often misunderstand about how Taya runs as a DAO ?

Inside Teia DAO Operations

Speaker 2 3:40

Well , it's like so , structurally speaking right , like we technically have about 3000 members right , but at any given time not everyone , not all 3000 people are there all the time , right . So what we have is like a core team who there's about a dozen of us or so , and many of those names you probably already know , like , if you've been around , tezos , like these are people who have been around and you know people know them and trust them , and so they kind of keep the day to day things running right , like maintaining the site , uh , making sure that the indexer is running properly and all that , those little things . But technically speaking , we about I guess it's almost two years ago now but we registered teia as an uh , like an official nonprofit in the Marshall Islands . So you know we're on there and , according to the operating agreement , legally the I love how you throw that word in legally .

Speaker 2 4:56

Legally . Well , you know it's important to some people . You know there's a difference between legal status and how things run right . I'm just making that distinction . But but the ultimately the authority rests on the dow , which is the token holders pay up . So you know , if there's like a big decision or like something that that will pertain to something existential , or big budgeting or those sorts of things , the token holders have the same . That's how we're structured . But in the meantime there's a bottom dozen or so of us that just keeps running and we vote on little things adding features , fixing bugs and um , everything's open source and you can see everything .

Speaker 1 5:50

So you know , that's kind of the beauty of it so what's kept you committed to teya through all the ups and downs since then ?

Speaker 2 6:01

uh well , it doesn't . People say this a lot but at the end of the day , it's about the people right and um , I have a couple stories uh regarding teah that really like kept me in and actually interesting thing . They both have to do with merchant capola . You know , you know that uh , artists that uh they're not too active on on social media right now , but there are a key part . It was their idea to like do the non-profit thing and they do like the big budget proposes and all that kind

Stories of Integrity in Crypto

Speaker 2 6:36

of thing . So you know , but I was talking to them when I first joined Taya and and this really stuck in my mind because it was the first time someone asked me for a ledger record in regards to something I was doing on chain .

Speaker 2 6:57

I've been in crypto since like 2013 . I've been around forever . But then it was like you whoa , you're a dinosaur . Yeah , I feel old talking about it . Back in my day we could have been home . I got my first Bitcoin through mining right . There were no exchanges . That's how far back I go , you know .

Speaker 1 7:21

So you were running the car that was solving Sudokus .

Speaker 2 7:25

I guess . So it was just this little USB-powered box that you know , I didn't build it myself , I just bought it because someone made it . I'm like , oh , I'll try it out , you know . But anyway , even as long as I've been in this space , like up until that point , I didn't realize how most people don't even use the blockchain for what it was intended for . Like , yeah , oh , that makes sense . You're looking for a record of something I did and you're asking me for the receipt , and you know , when you go on in other chains or other places , like you realize , most people don't even bother , you know .

Speaker 2 8:10

So it kind of it kind of blew me away that they were asking me this question like whoa , whoops , uh , so , so the other part is um , so when we were forming the DAO , we need money . You know it's not free , right to register , it costs thousands of dollars and we had to find that money somehow . So there was a few of us that were willing to kind of front that cost right , because we felt it was important . We felt it was important and so we loaned the money to Taya , put it in their treasury and , you know , they use that funds to pay for it and , honestly , I did expect to get that money back because I thought you know like it's hard and maybe it'll work .

Speaker 2 9:12

But the thing is , uh , like about five , four or five months ago , uh merchant again said like oh , we need to pay these people back because it's a loan . We said it was a loan and you know so . So , so , like km makes a little bit of money from all the minting costs , right , like we take a little fee , sure , so over time they accumulated that money and they actually paid everyone back . Wow , like after a year , right , like there were so many opportunities just to forget or whatever you know . Like you know , people disappear . People disappear in this space a lot . So I don't know , that was really like . It just showed like how much like integrity you know this this ecosystem has , you know and it's awesome .

Speaker 2 10:03

Yeah , it was like it was a nice surprise and you know , in the best possible way . So it's and those , those sorts of things happen all the time here , you know , like too many to mention , and I just feel very comfortable being around this ecosystem because I can , I feel like you know I can trust it .

Speaker 1 10:22

So , yeah , that's why I'm here now , teah cafe is your own thing , a bit different from the dao

Teia Cafe and On-Chain Copyright

Speaker 1 10:31

work . Let's talk about that . What sparked the idea to start Taya Cafe ?

Speaker 2 10:36

Oh yeah , so Taya Cafe . The current version is and you can check it now if you want . It's live . We've been pushing all the changes live it's .

Speaker 1 10:47

Tayacafe .

Speaker 2 10:49

Yeah , tayacafe . So , just to be clear , taya Cafe is my project , mine and Joe's project . We're going to form a company around it , and Taya is something completely different . The name is more of an homage , right , it's an homage to the community , but at the same time , we are using resources from their like the artworks , of course , and you know their api and their indexer . So , um , yeah , so , so that's basically what it is . And um , teah cafe . It went through a lot of different iterations . In the first version , we wanted to like we were trying to do a little bit too much , you know . We wanted to showcase everything .

Speaker 2 11:47

Right , as we all do yeah we wanted to do everything right , right , and that's kind of hard . So for version two , we decided to focus more on the music side , and so right now , if you go on Ted's Cafe , it's mostly a radio station that's very similar to Hickok Hen Radio , hen Radio , if you remember that .

Speaker 2 12:12

And it has all the same music and all the same songs too .

Speaker 2 12:15

So if you're feeling nostalgic of that era , now's a good time to kind of check it out , I think . But we wanted to kind of pursue the . So , in the last two years or so , I've been trying to figure out how to build a on-chain copyright registration system because , uh , that was actually the main reason why I got involved with crypto to begin with , because I come from a music background and , you know , the music industry has a lot of issues regarding that stuff , especially , you know , regarding it . You can see it very clearly now with ai and you know , but but but that has always been there , you know , like , copyright has always been an issue and so , uh , you know , and so I thought the blockchain would be the perfect place to like build these things , because , you know , it brings transparency to a uh uh model that is needed , badly , needed , right , and so this is like back in 2013 , 2014 , and I honestly thought someone else would have done it , someone else smarter than me , someone else with more money and nobody's smarter than you , right ?

Speaker 2 13:39

no , I'm kidding uh , oh yeah , I know , thank you . No , I mean , what does that even mean , man ?

Speaker 1 13:46

it's just like I don't know , I don't know , I don't like a good time for it yeah , yeah , yeah , but but you know it's so .

Speaker 2 13:54

Eventually I got tired of waiting , because it's the same pattern . I've been in this space long enough to see it done , even in previous crypto cycles right , what happens is that someone raises money to do this copyright thing Cool . But because they're building it under a startup model , right , like they beholden to the interests of their investors and and eventually they become like a single point of failure . And then you know , and then it's like , well , at that point , is it any different from what we have now ? You know , so , not really , yeah , so I thought so . My idea was like OK , how can we do this fully on chain , you know , and the thing is you can't remove the middleman , so to speak , completely because they are necessary , right , to some extent that's .

Speaker 1 14:57

They're not middlemen , they serve a purpose yeah , they serve a purpose . It's mostly like that uh , unlike the scalpers between us and tickets to taylor swift , do they serve a purpose other than to make the ticket people ?

Speaker 2 15:13

they are bridging something in the market that is not there , right , if you look at it that way . I mean , some people have opinions , whether it's good or bad , but I mean there's a reason they call it scalping right yeah , but you know , I mean , if you don't want scalpers , you should have a better model . That's my I don't know .

Speaker 1 15:34

You know , like , are you implying they want anyway ? I'm kidding I don't know , it's ryan , what's been the most rewarding or surprising thing about running to a cafe ?

Speaker 2 15:47

um think , uh , when we started the project , I made it a point to not have a database and even to this day , we still don't have one . We don't , we have no logins , we don't track anything and all the data comes directly from the chain . So I had lots of people tell me , like no , you know , like , oh , you know , if you like , even for simple stuff like keeping login info or passwords and you know , all that kind of stuff , I'm like I don't want to , you know , I want to just try to do a really pure version of it . So you know it brought up certain challenges , right . I want to just try to do a really pure version of it . So you know it brought up certain challenges , right . Like things are , some things are harder if you don't have a database , of course , but we managed to do it , you know , and I still think it's entirely possible . So , yeah , you know , and the thing that makes it possible and this is why I stick to the Taya ecosystem very closely is because I feel like there are certain parts of the industry that needs to be in sort of this neutral area , you know , and because Taya is community owned , right , it's literally owned by the DAO , that we can leverage that to build certain things that would not be possible , right , with just a regular startup . And you know , it's kind of just like open source . That's what open source is . Right , you can think of Taya as like the open source community of NFTs and digital art . You know , it's the first of its kind , but I still believe , like there's a lot of things that can happen there that are yet to come .

Speaker 2 18:00

You know , um , even in tech , right , you have like w3c . I can , uh , I'm pretty sure , yeah , they're , they're non-profits , right , I'm pretty sure they're , um , but by either way , right , they're , they're not owned by one company , but they , they were very , very instrumental in making the current version of the internet work , because behind the scenes , they set all these standards that everybody had to use and it keeps you know , yeah , it keeps the playing field a little fair . Um , it gets common resources for even private companies to use , right , it's like the bridges and roads of , uh , the digital space . So I'm looking forward to what , uh , Taya can accomplish over the next few years , because I really do believe they can serve that purpose . You know , I'm not just for Tesla's but but digital art as a whole .

Speaker 1 19:06

That's really cool . Now you've also been working with Joe Simon recently , which

Collaboration with Joe Simon

Speaker 1 19:13

I mean your new project .

Speaker 2 19:14

Last two years .

Speaker 1 19:15

Yeah , yeah , yeah yeah , yeah , a long time . I mean , that's that's some development , right . So what brought you two together ? I mean , that's that's a long relationship . What ? What started it all ?

Speaker 2 19:26

huh , actually it's a little blurry actually , but okay it was obviously it was at a bar over drinks actually , but okay , it was . Obviously it was at a bar over drinks .

Speaker 1 19:44

Yeah uh , virtual drinks . Yes , I've never met him in person before , actually , uh oh that's awesome .

Speaker 2 19:48

Yeah , three , yeah , but we talked to each other all the time . Uh , he was introduced to me by zero , not I remember . Uh , zero is um , he kind of keeps the , the servers and the , the teyaart running , so he's also a very popular baker , if you're into that world . Um , yeah , really , really great guy uh . But he's like , oh , you should talk to joe .

Speaker 2 20:13

Um , yeah , like there was a previous version of tea cafe that was operating under a different company name , but I was kind of transitioning out of that at the time and I'm like , oh man , I need someone to help me with the dev work because I I can do like front end coding tech cafe . Most of the designs are mine . So I kind of did that . But the smart contracts and all that complicated stuff , mickleson , and it's just , you know , too much for me , so I needed help . And then he was willing to help me out and so we did a few projects together , uh , mostly just for fun , and but it's like , oh , this is kind of working so . So , right now , um , he's contracting for me . Um , he's working for me part-time here and there , but , uh , in the upcoming months where I think he's going to be a co-founder for , uh , our next , you know , official company .

Speaker 1 21:21

So yeah , yeah no , no , no .

Speaker 2 21:24

We have a great relationship . You know he's a great dev . He knows what he's doing . You know you'll see his name all over the place , cause he's been working on projects all over so .

Speaker 1 21:36

So do you think working with Joe has given you any new ideas or changed about how you think about Taya or teya cafe ?

Speaker 2 21:43

I mean , he's been pretty instrumental from the beginning , it seems yeah , well , he's also been very patient , you know , because , um , so , after , after the , my last company , uh , went under , you know , uh , I was like , oh my god , what am I gonna do ? I don't know how to code . So , but I tried to teach myself how to code , and this was like three years ago , you know so , and before that I have no experience , okay . So so I was like at the , you know , gpt came , came out at the same time , and so that was a little , you know , like AI is actually pretty helpful if you're a beginner , and so I was just trying to brute force my way through making an app and somehow I did it . But you know , I'll be perfectly honest , you know I'm new at it . I'm not , I can get what I want out there , but , like , a lot of the details about like , oh , how do we make it efficient , how do we make it scalable , you know , and so we had a talk .

Speaker 1 22:59

How do you scale that if you don't even know how you made it ? I'm just curious .

Speaker 2 23:07

You don't , because I'm special and you don't want it to scale , you know I don't want people to copy me . That's why you know I'm kind of joking . But some artists actually do this . They make it so opaque and like what ?

Speaker 2 23:20

well , you know cause , cause to preserve that , but that's a whole nother . But anyway , uh , you know like we reached a point in the app and I I like , if , if you know version one , you know what I'm talking about . There's about like 5 trillion features in there and many of them I think were pretty interesting , at least personally but it wasn't streamlined , you know . So I talked to him like some months ago and he brought up the idea of starting over , you know , and he was like maybe a little apprehensive because he thought it might , you know , offend me or something . But I'm like no , please help me , help me do this thing , you know , offend me or something . But I'm like , no , please help , help me , you know , help me do this thing . You know , because I know it's slow and I know I don't know what I'm doing , you know .

Speaker 2 24:10

But I think a lot of the ideas are are okay and but we just wanted to see realized in a way where it's like , you know , like industry standard , uh , standard , uh , if , if we have like a lot of people come into our site , for some way , we want to be able to handle that right . So so I'm like , yeah , let's do it , you know , I mean it's a good time we can take ideas from the old app and then bring it over to the new one , and we're doing that . Yeah , that's that's what our focus would be over the next few months and and yeah , honestly , it's , it's so much better like the new version is so much better like it's like oh man , I , you know , you , probably , you you load a playlist and it just does it , you know , and uh , so yeah , um , that's basically it . You like , I had to learn how to , like , kind of you know , step out of the way and let the professionals kind of do their thing Right , and yeah , it takes a little longer , but maybe , you know , it's usually worth it .

Speaker 1 25:21

Well , let's talk about the tesla's art community for a bit . What's one weird or wonderful thing that's happened in this community that still makes you smile ?

The Tesla Art Community Culture

Speaker 2 25:33

oh , I mean recently . I mean it could be from a while ago .

Speaker 1 25:40

I mean it could be something that legacy left an impression .

Speaker 2 25:43

I don't know , am I allowed to talk about Tezpol ?

Speaker 1 25:48

I mean , you were there , I was there .

Speaker 2 25:51

You know I'm not going to shame anyone , but it's just like . But it's more about yeah , see the pot Like people don't realize how big of a deal that was .

Speaker 2 26:01

I thought it was awesome , at least as far as publicity went and as far as marketing goes , you can't get better eyes on us yeah , I know , and because , because I'll be honest , I was there , I was in florida meeting a friend and I was like , oh , okay , well , since I'm here , might as well , um , represent teya . You know , like they , uh they did , they did actually do like they're pretty generous about giving teya a space , right and and that was pretty exciting . So , like , sure , yeah , I'll go and and and you know , uh , stuff happened , but uh , but the important thing is kind of like how the community responded , right and right uh , they could have turned something that could have been like it , you know , like a complete disaster , into something very interesting and really brought life to the whole .

Speaker 2 26:58

You know people were really excited . You know people still talk about it today and it really stood out .

Speaker 2 27:04

There was one at tezcon yeah , jake , jake brought in his homemade , uh , tezpo , you know , and you're not gonna get that from just a run-of-the-mill , you know , clean and polished , like gallery , you know , I mean there's nothing wrong with it , but but it really like showed the world , really like that's that's the spirit right of the , the movement , the community , and uh , yeah , so so that's uh , you know , that's a weird quirky thing about us that you know it's still here today Like we're going to be I live in Seattle , you know , right , like we're going to be starting our monthly Tez Tez . I guess we're calling it TezCon Seattle , you know , but we'll be meeting monthly locally trying to meet local people , meeting monthly locally trying to meet local people . And this , this town has kind of a reputation right For being like punk and you know a very yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . So we're hoping I do think there's a synergy there that can happen , you know , and yeah .

Speaker 2 28:17

I'm looking forward to August 10th , 3 PM at easy street records , if you happen to be an , to August 10th , 3 pm at Easy Street Records , if you happen to be in the area .

Speaker 1 28:26

Now , if it's after August and you're watching this , I'm sorry you might have missed it . Oh really , Well , just saying , I mean this is recorded , you know .

Speaker 2 28:35

Oh , it's going to take that long , huh .

Speaker 1 28:37

No , I'm just saying Somebody could be watching this a year from now , Ryan .

Speaker 2 28:41

Oh , that's true . No , but we're going to be there . They'll come to the next one .

Speaker 1 28:46

Come to the next one .

Speaker 2 28:47

Where's the where you were going to be doing monthly , you know ? Just come to the absolutely .

Speaker 1 28:52

Now let's , uh , let's say everything you're building works , People get it . What's changed five years from now ?

Future Vision and Where to Connect

Speaker 2 29:06

That's an interesting question , assuming all the things I'm working on gets done .

Speaker 1 29:14

This is fairytale land we live . In reality , 21 out of the 22 things we're working on are going to fail two things we're working on are going to fail .

Speaker 2 29:26

So , like , well , you know , I think a lot of us in this space are banking on the , the diligence . Like tesla's . People are very diligent , you know , like I I told a few stories already about you know , proof of that . But but we're hoping that someday that will pay off right and uh , because if you look outside , there's so many crazy things happening , not just in the economy but the world as a whole , right , and the hope is that the broader society will appreciate people who just want to do things the right way . You know , and we're living in a weird time because , both online and off , we're just used to getting grifted all the time .

Speaker 2 30:09

Right , but unfortunately , unfortunately , yeah , but tezels is like kind of my happy place , where it gave me like , oh , people here mean what they say and they want to do things in a fair way . You know they're not going to always agree with you , but they're pretty civil and they're fair . You know , and I think you know , that that's worth everything in the world . You know , like more than anything , right , yeah , and so you know more than anything , right , yeah , and so you know , and because , because I'm anticipating like the world is going to be pretty hectic over the next few years , and I'm hoping there'll be like a moment where they collectively realize , right , oh , this is where we need to be , you know , and what we're really doing right now is just preparing for that .

Speaker 2 31:02

Right , it's not going to happen overnight , but I think it'll happen overnight , ryan well , I could with the right event , but you know one good music festival and we'll save the world right yeah , things , things move slowly and then they happen all at once . Yeah , you know what I mean . That works .

Speaker 1 31:23

Oh yeah .

Speaker 2 31:24

Yeah , it's like I wish it would be spread out a little more , but that's not how life works , you know . So it's going to be nothing for a long time and then one day it's just going to be boom , like what happened Just like with Hicken right , like nobody anticipated that , it just happened , exploded , nobody anticipated that , it just happened . And then it exploded and , you know , it took a life on its own and I think that'll happen again , you know , yeah now for anyone watching who's curious about what you're doing now .

Speaker 1 31:55

What's the best place to start ?

Speaker 2 31:58

oh , um , I guess I'm most active on twitter , so you can follow me on Ryan J Tanaka and I yeah , most things . I just kind of start there . So most you know most of the crypto people are on there , so if you want to know what I've been doing lately , then that's the best place . Yeah , that's the best place . Yeah , and you can always uh , I'm also on um threads um facebook if you really want , but what's threads ?

Speaker 2 32:31

no , I'm kidding uh yeah , threads is there's just , like you know , the twitter of instagram . It Instagram . Think of it as Twitter , but more suburban , that's the best way I can describe it .

Speaker 1 32:48

That's wild . I just went off into another world . When you said that you saw my brain just go whoop .

Speaker 2 32:53

It's a suburban Twitter . It's toxic over there too , but in a different way it also has strong points .

Speaker 1 33:05

Well , Ryan , thanks for hanging out with us today . Lots of good stuff here and I'm sure people are going to want to check out Taya Cafe after this . For everyone watching , this has been Tez Talks . If it's your first time here , check out our past episodes and we'll be back with more conversations like this soon . Ryan , thanks again and we'll see you next time .

Speaker 2 33:26

Thank you for having me . Yep , see you soon .