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?

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?

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 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 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 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?

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?

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.