22 Jan 2024/17 min/Zeneca
MLow X Zeneca Interview
Zen Academy founder Zeneca on turning 16 years of poker into web3 education, why he ran a burn instead of a cash grab mint, and how to build a personal brand.
Recorded October 10, 2023 as a full Google Meet behind a 17 minute clip, this episode sits down with Roy, better known as Zeneca: professional poker player from 2005 to early 2021, then all in on crypto, where his newsletter and Twitter threads exploded within months and pushed him to make educational content his full time work. Zen Academy grew from noticing that the space had PFP, IP, gaming and flipping communities but no education community, and its mission stays deliberately broad: it is literally just to help people.
The center of the conversation is founder mechanics. He walks through the three tier ecosystem, the 333 Club minted at 3.33 ETH by application, the 10K Denizens, and free unlimited soulbound Student IDs, and the burn path from the original ERC-1155 through the Zen Chest to the revealed Denizen PFP, drawn by the Thai artist Pondering over a nine month, Google Translate mediated build across Dubai, Thailand, Malaysia, both US coasts and Europe. The sharpest answer comes on why he ran a burn instead of a revenue mint: the ecosystem did not need more tokens, holders from 2021 had already paid, and if that leaves Zen Academy less well funded, we'll bootstrap and be scrappy.
The back half is the widest ranging strategy talk in the archive: poker expected value applied to memecoins (picking a random token is worse odds than a casino), his regret at round tripping Bored Apes he felt unable to sell while tweeting about them, the prediction that 99 percent of NFT collections go to zero while art is the clearest store of value, the hourglass framework for finding a niche, Stoic reading recommendations, his collecting thesis, and five to ten year calls on AI plus blockchain provenance, proof of humanity, and social fi after friend.tech.
What this episode teaches
- Find the unoccupied community category
Zeneca located his niche by enumerating what existed, PFP, IP, gaming and flipping communities, and noticing education was missing. He also abandoned the one stop platform idea fast: the space changes too quickly, so he started with a Discord community instead.
- Refuse the dilutive mint
Facing the post royalty revenue gap, the obvious move was a new 10K mint. He declined: holders who paid in 2021 should get the PFP for free via burn, a second supply at 0.05 rarely works, and staying above mint price matters more than being well funded.
- Trade like a poker player or not at all
Picking a random token is worse odds than roulette. If you must trade, size a bankroll you can lose, think in expected value (a 10 percent shot at 100x is worth buying), and decide your exits in advance so emotion never makes the call. Otherwise buy and hold BTC and ETH for ten years.
- Do not become bagholder to your own brand
He round tripped Bored Apes worth hundreds of thousands because selling after publicly praising a collection felt wrong. In hindsight he would have sold on the way up: my brand would have survived. MLow's counter strategy: pick a cheap PFP so the cost of admission never hurts.
- The hourglass framework
Start broad like the top of an hourglass, trying everything until something resonates and obsesses you; niche down hard and build your brand on that one thing; then, once known for it, broaden out again into your general interests.
- Own a color
His purple, an Art Blocks piece behind his PFP, made him recognizable everywhere. His advice is almost embarrassingly simple: pick a color, put it in your PFP background, banner and everything else, and let people associate you with it.
- Read old books
Ten thousand productivity books ship every year; start instead with what has survived decades or millennia. His picks: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Letters from a Stoic by Seneca (the root of his name), and Sapiens. Then just keep reading.
- Give away content, sell access
Scalable content should be free: it grows the brand and helps people who cannot pay. What you gate is the unscalable thing, your time, DMs and voice chats. And test every new monetization protocol against one question: is it actually better than Patreon?
- A collecting thesis in three questions
Would I hang it in my house or a digital frame, does it make me feel or think something, and is this an artist I want to support? He admits to minting too much in 2021 and 2022 and now collects less and more mindfully.
- Most NFTs will be free
His long view: the majority of NFTs from now until the end of time will be free or cost a few dollars, used by companies as marketing and brand ambassadorship. The expensive ones will be art, collectibles, or tokens with strict utility.
The conversation, topic by topic
Poker to educator
Roy played professional poker for about 16 years, from 2005 to early 2021, dabbled in crypto in 2017, then went properly all in. He began as a trader and flipper, the path that attracts poker players, but within three or four months his newsletter and Twitter threads exploded and by mid to late 2021 he committed to education full time.
The birth of Zen Academy
The idea came in June 2021 after his own brutal learning curve of wallets, on chain mistakes and lost money. He first imagined a one stop education platform, realized the content changes too fast, and restarted community first with a Discord, then a token. The mission is deliberately unspecific: to help people, by breaking complex topics into easy language.
Three tiers, three tokens
The 333 Club caps at 333 members, minted at 3.33 ETH through a six month application process, with perks like booking time directly on his Calendly. The Denizens are the 10K membership tier with course access and discounts. Student IDs are free, unlimited, soulbound and explicitly not for speculation: pure community access.
From ERC-1155 to Zen Chest to Denizen
The Genesis token launched November 2021 as a two week open edition at 0.033 ETH with roughly 8,000 minted. Its ERC-1155 limitations led to a burn into the ERC-721 Zen Chest, which holders can keep sealed like an unopened pack or burn again to reveal a Denizen PFP. Utility is identical across all three states.
Why a burn, not a mint
Zeneca admits the temptation to mint for funds, since most 2021 projects are struggling with royalties going away. He refused: the ecosystem did not need more tokens, charging existing holders felt wrong, and a new 10K at 0.05 would likely break the above mint price record he values. The alternative: bootstrap, make do, be scrappy.
Pondering and the art
The lead illustrator is Pondering, an artist from Thailand, with creative director Pixelate handling layering specs. The project began as pixel art until Pondering freed up in December 2022. Nine months end to end: three or four on the base character, then traits, color and 1/1s. They tested alien skin palettes, found them too foreign to relate to, and landed on humanoid but a little magical, in the brand purple.
Hell on earth scheduling
Pondering spoke almost no English, so the build ran on Google Translate and then a translating friend, across Dubai, Thailand, Malaysia, both US coasts and Europe. Two or three live calls a week at best, heavy async in Slack and Figma, and five to eight hours a day of calls in the final weeks. The Zen Daily show with Eddie and Emily, meanwhile, died to the same math: a daily show demands top priority.
The casino thesis
Drawing on poker: randomly picking a token is worse odds than a roulette table, where the house edge is at least known. The transferable skills are expected value thinking, bankroll management and mental fortitude. His advice for memecoin traders: assume zero, pre commit exit rules to remove emotion, and remember these assets have no fundamentals, only momentum and attention.
Round tripping the Apes
Asked about holding Bored Apes from early to today, he describes the trap of the public educator: he could not sell collections he had just written about without feeling dishonest, so he held far more than he wished, round tripping hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lesson learned: he would sell more on the way up, and his brand would have survived.
What survives the cycle
He expects 99 percent of collections to go to zero. Art, especially generative art and notable 1/1s, is the clearest NFT store of value. Punks survive; Pudgy Penguins have cracked external revenue; Yuga is a well funded wildcard; the PFP sector overall he is bearish on, with gaming the likely next narrative. On RTFKT and Doodles: venture funded ten year time horizons clash with a market that thinks in months.
Personal branding, the full lecture
Utilizing IP to save a floor price is impossible; using it to build yourself is powerful. His playbook: differentiate your PFP (his purple Art Blocks background), own a color everywhere, use the hourglass framework, and above all be genuine, since your unique self is the only thing nobody else can bring. He found his own voice only in his 30s.
Stoics and the name
His reading list starts with old books: Meditations and Letters from a Stoic, plus Sapiens for humanity, memetics and memes. Creating his crypto Twitter account in March 2021 he saw the Seneca book on his desk, blended it with Zen Buddhism, and Zeneca stuck.
Favorite artists and why he collects
Alpha Centauri Kid may be his favorite; also Grant Yun, Refik Anadol (whose Barcelona activation blew him away), Zancan, Tiffatron, photographer Cath Simard, Pondering and Snowfro, whom he admires as a human being as much as for the squiggles. Collecting evolved from flipping to three questions: do I like it, would I display it, do I want to support this artist. Art, he argues, is what makes us human, and buying it is how artists keep making it.
Five to ten year calls
Web3 disappears as a term and merges into the internet, with wallets everywhere and digital frames like the Samsung Frame making collecting practical in small apartments. AI makes blockchain provenance essential against fake content, and proof of humanity projects like Worldcoin matter when bots outnumber people. Social fi is inevitable but he gives friend.tech maybe a 5 percent survival chance over Stars Arena, since the bonding curve cannot scale to a 10,000 person fan club. Zen Academy's plan: a new course, a book, a book club, and no roadmap promises, as ever. MLow closes with his own story: cold DMs that nobody answered, then 40 interviews in two months, and a Sappy Seal people now recognize.
In their words
“It's literally just to help people.”
Zeneca“We didn't need more tokens. I don't like the idea of charging people additional money. If they bought a token in 2021, they should get stuff for that.”
Zeneca“Picking a token is worse odds than going to a casino.”
Zeneca“The best strategy is buy and hold Bitcoin and ETH and just sit on your hands and wait ten years.”
Zeneca“Just start broad and try things. Learn different things. See what sticks.”
Zeneca“We need more art in the world. I think it's basically what makes us human.”
ZenecaCite this conversation
Zeneca in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Zeneca Interview," The MLow Show, 22 Jan 2024. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2024-01-22-mlow-x-zeneca-interview.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.