The Signal
The guest explains the business built around crypto products and distribution, while Threadguy pushes on listings, platforms, memecoins, and what a durable company looks like after the cycle changes. The conversation treats the headline number as a result of repeated product work rather than a single token trade.
Key Takeaways
- 01
PRODUCT BEFORE THE TICKER
They return repeatedly to the difference between a product, its coin, and the API or distribution layer around it.
- 02
EXCHANGES SET CONSTRAINTS
The discussion asks why a major venue such as Base or Coinbase would list one asset rather than another, and what a listing actually changes.
- 03
CYCLES FORCE REINVENTION
The guest describes crypto as a series of changing narratives, from earlier experiments through newer consumer products.
- 04
MEMES ARE A COMPETITIVE FORMAT
Trump, celebrity attention, and memecoin behavior come up as examples of how quickly attention can attach to an asset.
- 05
BUILDING IS THE THROUGHLINE
The close returns to making products that users can understand and benefit from.
On the Record
“We've sold about 700,000 drinks, 700,000 cans since October. A pack of 24 costs $69, so if anyone wants to, they can work it out.”
“We don't have like a mechanical link right now where it says x percent of revenues goes back towards buying the token. I think it's something that we can do in the future very easily.”
“You need to have a good product in a market that needs something. And I think the most important thing is you need to have a good community that already exists and you need to do right by your community.”
The Breakdown
Setting the business frame
The conversation opens with Threadguy flagging macro, crypto, and the guest’s business, then immediately lands on the 7-Eleven collaboration. The guest says traditional drink-industry contacts initially heard ‘crypto project’ and dismissed it as a scam. After sales began to show, and as US policy talk became more crypto-friendly, those same conversations became much easier. A retailer with thousands of stores even found the company through its website contact form, an inbound lead he initially suspected was fake.
Distribution and listings
Threadguy presses on the mechanical link between a project, an exchange, and users. The guest says 700,000 cans have sold since October, with a 24-pack priced at $69, while declining to state a headline revenue figure. Online buyers earn points that convert to a seasonal token claim; 7-Eleven buyers received a scratch-off code that claimed Rect into a wallet on Abstract. The activation exposed the friction: a buyer wanting to cash out had to buy ETH, bridge, sell, and bridge back, making a direct off-ramp or major listing the obvious missing piece.
The product–coin split
A recurring distinction is between product, coin, and distribution. The company spent about $200,000 buying back Rect, which the guest says later marked around $800,000 in the treasury, but he stresses there is no fixed percentage of drink revenue dedicated to buybacks. The rewards pool holds 34% earmarked for future rewards, which he puts near $45 million. His intended flywheel is drinks selling out, attention and token price rising, the pool becoming more valuable, and later rewards using a lower percentage of supply.
Consumer crypto’s old experiments
Walk-to-earn, vape-to-earn, and earlier consumer experiments become the comparison set. The guest argues they often created a coin before there was a real brand or community, attracting people who only wanted to flip it. Rect existed for nearly four years before this version of the token and already had a loyal art-community base. He calls the result a ‘brand coin’: customers who buy drinks and promote the brand can earn an asset whose value, in his view, tracks sentiment around the brand without being equity or a claim on cash flows.
Memes and political attention
The guest extends the idea through corporate-finance language. An acquirer can pay above net asset value for a company because of intangible brand value; he sees the coin as a liquid, tradable market for a related intangible. Threadguy says that framing is needed for ICM-style brand coins, especially for skeptics who would rather own equity. The guest’s reply is that private equity is hard to sell too, while a crypto market lets people buy, sell, or short their view in real time.
Reinvention without losing users
Near the end, Threadguy asks why this reinvention feels different from the guest’s prior arcs. The guest says the team now includes experienced drinks operators, including a founder of a seven-figure UK drinks company and a Southern California energy-drink veteran who helped secure 7-Eleven. He says the essential ingredients are a product people actually like and an existing community treated as stakeholders rather than converted into customers. He has stopped trading and is focused fully on building what he believes could become a billion-dollar company.
Distilled from the episode transcript · Counterparty Recap Desk
