Brycent, Web3 Gaming Influencer and CEO of Loot Bolt on Content Creation and the Future of Web3 Gaming

In an exclusive interview with cryptonews.com, Brycent, Web3 Gaming Influencer, and CEO of Loot Bolt talks about the secret sauce of content creation, the future of Web3 gaming, and monetizing your community.

About Brycent

Brycent is a Web3 Gaming Creator, Partnered Twitch Streamer and the CEO of venture-funded startup Loot Bolt. He is a web3 gaming OG and the biggest influencer in the space.

Brycent gave a wide-ranging exclusive interview which you can see below, and we are happy for you to use it for publication provided there is a credit to www.cryptonews.com.

Highlights Of The Interview

• The secret sauce of content creation.
• The future of web3 gaming – Play-to-Earn is dead.
• Web3 content creation outside of Twitter – other platforms provide asymmetric opportunities.
• Elon buying Twitter for $44bn USD will be a discount in years to come.

Full Transcript Of The Interview

Matt Zahab 
Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the Cryptonews Podcast. I am very pumped to have this dude on the show today. I’ve been trying to snag him for a while. Finally got some time out of his busy schedule. Today we have the one and only Brycent, the king of Web3, gaming content creation, a partner Twitch streamer, and the CEO of a new venture-funded startup LootBolt. Brycent is a Web3 gaming OG and the biggest influencer in the space. Without further ado, I’m very pleased to welcome Brycent to the Cryptonews Podcast. Welcome to the show, my friend.

Brycent 
What’s going on, Matt? Thanks for having me. I know it’s been a while since we first chatted about me coming on. So I’m glad that we could get it all squared away. I’m excited to chat more and talk about the space. A lot has happened. The first time we talked about getting things rolling. So thanks for having me.

Matt Zahab 
Craziness pumped to have you on bro. I’d like to start with your story. I’ve been following you. Really since I sort of got into Web3 gaming, which was about I want to say a year, year and a half ago. You weren’t that big when I first started following you and you’ve had this absolute crazy rise. And a lot of it has been based off stuff that you preach creating content, legit content, not shilling stuff posting every day, cross posting, you know, you’re not just being on Twitter, you’re a Twitch streamer. You’re on YouTube shorts. You’ve done it all. But tell me about your story and how you have become one of the biggest Web3 gaming influencers in the space? 

Brycent 
Yeah, it’s, uh, I feel like, I’ve been in Web3, what a year. It’s like a year and a half of the year and a half. And it feels like a decade. I don’t know, maybe game. I mean, Web3 and crypto just take a little bit more time off of your life. But, you know, when I found this space, a year and a half ago, I didn’t really know what Web3 gaming was a really popular Web3 venture capitalists named Andrew Steinwold, who hosts like the search for me on podcast, he was chatting with this guy named Crochet Kay, and they were talking about virtual land. And this Pokemon game and at the time, like the only real Web3 game that was out was Axie Infinity. And this is like pre hack days pre all that potentially scammy stuff. And I was just a big Pokemon fan like growing up as a kid I played a ton of Pokemon so and someone said Pokemon on that you can make money off of and like you can battle your friends and wager against your friends and all this cool stuff. It like made complete sense to me. And I dove in and realized I want I didn’t know anything about crypto. I didn’t even know how to set up a wallet. I didn’t know how to move funds in a decentralized way. So the first time I tried to jump into Web3 gaming I like it was I just like said, you know, if I like went away for a couple days, it was like that itch was still there. So I went back online, I got the basics down. And then I went on Twitch to see like, okay, is anybody playing this outrageous looking game at the time, and no one was streaming it. And that’s when I like, had that moment. It was like it’s 7pm East Coast time. And I’m like, so no one’s streaming this game that’s supposed to be like the future of gaming based on what these guys were saying, or this future gaming category. So I was like, alright, we’re just gonna start streaming in. And if we like, you know, if it grows somewhere, then so be it. If not, we’ll have fun along the way. I’m a software engineer by trade. So, you know, I wasn’t like looking to make this my full-time gig until it was my full-time gig. But um, it happened so quickly. And from the early onset, you know, it was all about making content. I think I failed at YouTube a ton of times, but I wanted to just continue putting out content, and I didn’t really have a vision for how quickly things will grow. But I realized that, you know, in Axie at the time there, you know, this thing called scholarship was really big. Of course, that model is completely dead. But you know, at the time, it was like otherworldly. And I was like, we have all these people, all these Filipino people that at the time, they really had no, I would say like, they didn’t understand like Western civilization in terms of like, how to interact and how to grow and how to be someone that’s productive. And Web3, like beyond just playing a video game and farming it as if it was like this Lord and serve kind of like, mentality, which I felt was kind of weird. So I was like, providing people like, you know, the scholarships, but in the same mold, like, you know, pretty much inspiring them to follow their passions, and do shit that can get them real jobs and Web3, like my, my entire video editing team is based out of the Philippines and I pay them, you know, monthly to edit so much content that I’m putting out. And it’s like, there’s so many different people with interesting skills. And the idea was alright, like, I’m growing, let me help teach these people how to interact in this space. And some of them found a way in others, you know, not so much. But it was like, not something that I ever expected in my wildest dreams. So when it happened, I was like, All right, you know, we’re in this game. I loved it up into a point. I think it was December of last year when I called it quits and playing Axie full time and I said, Hey, you know, there were some things I didn’t really agree with and I decided to take a step away and focus solely on Web3 gaming at the time I was working alongside Vayner. They had like, offered to sign me. So we kind of had a vision with where we wanted to take my brand and the entire space and we can dive more into it. I know this is like kind of a long spiel, but it ended up being like going from, you know, no followers on Twitch to like 50,000 in the span of like, six or seven months. And at one point, you’re averaging like 5000 concurrent viewers, it was the most absurd time I had ever experienced. 

Matt Zahab 
So you started with Axie and for the folks back home listening. Axie was the biggest Web3 game Barnatan last year, it was the game that gave hope to everyone else. Yeah. Now it’s again, I’m not gonna say it’s a scam, but it’s just the play to earn. And we can get into this I’m sure we’ll get into this later on. But play to earn is really folks like you can’t be playing a game to earn money. This is a you play to you play the game, to pass the time and to have a shitload of fun. And if you can earn money on the side, great. It cannot be the primary catalyst of growth. It has to be secondary or tertiary. But going back to you here, you started playing Axie. What sort of habits and rituals and daily disciplines did you instill in yourself to be able to stream every day? Because I remember you were putting in like legit shifts, and you were repurposing all that content. Like, so many people and one of the craziest stats nowadays, is at schools, when kids are asked what do you want to be every single kid says I want to be an influencer or streamer that used to be a doctor or a pilot, or an astronaut or a lawyer or a banker and now it’s fairly streamer, or content creator. So what would you do? What would you tell to perhaps someone younger, someone getting out of uni really wants to tear it up? What disciplines would you need them to instill in themselves. 

Brycent 
I would say definitely look to find a niche, it’s like a wild misconception, but I actually stream way more now than I did back during the Axie days, which is hilarious. But you gotta like find your niche, I realized very early on that, like, when I first saw that Web3 gaming was there, and that no one was talking about it or playing it, I was like, there is a market for someone to be the ninja of this space. And that’s kind of where my mind immediately went when I like saw the like the first realization that no one was streaming it I was like, so if I just make content and like, stay consistent and focus on how we merge or, you know, the very, I would say, you know, essential term that everyone uses bridge the gap. But you know, how we find ways to create interconnectivity between all facets of gaming. That’s really where I saw like that niche, and I doubled down on it. And you know, now it’s like, I love what I do. But I’m often looking for that next niche within a niche within a market and trying to figure out where I take my content next, like you now I’m doing a little bit of stuff was so rare, because the NBA interest me and I’ve always been a basketball guy, it’s like, how do you bridge content, IRL, lifestyle, gaming, all of these different realms that are much more interconnected than we probably like, believe. So if I, if I was gonna give any like, person coming out, it would be take, like, a week or two. And this is what got me into the space, I was working on a different startup, like part time, and my mentor at the time was like, bro, just take, take a month off and shoot the shit. And then you’ll come back, and we’ll work on a new startup idea. And in that month off is when I found this Web3 gaming space and like, went really, really deep on it. So it’s like, a lot of the times your best like moments happen when you’re not intentionally looking for things. But you’re allowing yourself to go back to the passions, that allows you to really find where you feel comfortable. For myself, it was gaming. So I was like, you know what, after, you know, I was making 150k a year, I was like, after work, when I’m a software engineer, I’m just gonna bullshit every evening and go back to just playing video games, having fun, no, like, expectation behind anything, just mindless video gaming, and enjoying my time. And that’s kind of like what led to finding this whole niche or world. But I think we all like, look for something too much. And don’t give ourselves time to find what just kind of aligns with what we’re passionate about. I love gaming. And I think that doing it as the job has made me fall a little bit out of love with it. So I’m not in love with it as much as I used to be because now it’s like, the expectation is you have to do certain things and be aware, like and be at certain metrics and points. But I do think that there is a lot of power in leveraging what you’re truly passionate about to find that niche that can allow you to do it full time. 

Matt Zahab 
What’s the novella quote, it’s like, find something that feels like pleasure and play you but work to others. That’s, you know, it’s bang on. Walk me through your schedule. Like I know, you stream a lot at night, which makes sense. That’s when I feel like most people are off work and yeah, locked and loaded to have eyes on screens, but during the day, how are you prepping? You know, are you doing any research, are you sort of going through game flows beforehand, like walk me through your normal streaming schedule in a day of Brycent? 

Brycent 
Yeah, so it used to be pretty sporadic when I first started building the company, but after we raised money, and like really tried to like figure out what doubling down on gaming in Web3 looked like, it got to the point where it’s like, you know, from probably like 6 am to 3:30, I am working on my company so that portion of my day is CEO Bryce, of course, like my lunchbreaks is 12 to 1. So I’ll fit things in there, you’ll see me tweeting doing a bunch of different things. But you know, three, like 6am to 3:30. That’s like a Bryce’s is working as a CEO from 3:30. until like, anytime after that. I’m completely like content creators. So I stream from 4 to 8pm, every single day, Monday through Friday. And I think that a lot of people, like want to do content full time, but they don’t understand how important that consistency is on like, for me, I think that the unlock is Twitch streaming, I think eventually, that is what’s going to unlock Web3 gaming in some way, shape or form. So I focused and double down there. And then yeah, I do repurpose content, where it makes sense and how it makes sense. I’m getting to the point though, where I’m understanding that repurposing content in certain aspects is great, like if I need to repurpose a long form VOD, but I want to start making content that is culturally endemic to each individual platform. repurposing content can do well, and it saves you a lot of time. But I am like, I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of like growth at scale, and how you reach the biggest target audiences and the best way possible. And I look at some of the times where it’s like, Alright, Bryce, if you did three YouTube videos this week, like and I can knock out three YouTube videos in probably the course of like two hours or an hour and a half of like, just planning it in like writing it out and getting it all the way I want it, and then just going in and recording it. But it’s like, imagine that versus just doing one really, really good YouTube video, every single week that your editor can put 50 hours into one video. And it might not have anything to do with what you’re doing on your live stream, or it might have some interconnection to Web3, but it doesn’t have to be so deep into the weeds where your total addressable market is like kind of like I would say, segmented and I think that’s where we see in like NFT’s and Web3. It’s a segmented total addressable market. 

Matt Zahab 
It’s to particular.

Brycent
Yeah, versus if you look at a Mr. Beast, him making a video I buried myself alive for 50 hours. There is no like the total addressable market is anybody who’s looking for something that is high?

Matt Zahab 
Watch? Yeah, just high quality shit the past the time. That’s all it is. 

Brycent 
Exactly and I think that’s where it all needs to get unless you’re trying to do how to content but I tried doing that, like, I have a couple of how to videos that are coming out for, I’m bored as shit as that after doing like three or four videos, and I’m like, That’s not what’s going to make me feel fulfilled. I’d rather go out and take the biggest risk possible and figure out what that looks like. So I mean, I told my editor last night I was up till 4am. And just like, what like I sat there for like four hours, like reading quotes in like a notes from like, some of the biggest podcast that chat it was like Mr. B’s and the Logan Paul’s and the Jake Paul’s, and, you know, cutie pies and all these really interesting folks who’ve done it. And like figuring out not like a strategy of like, I need to follow this, this and this and this, but like, understanding that you have to go deep, really, really deep to figure out how you create one really good fucking piece of content that can be like taken and put in multiple places. One really good video is going to outweigh anything you like anything I’ve done for the past like six to eight months in the NFT space and releasing YouTube content. So now I’m very focused on like, I probably put anywhere from like three to five hours into just figuring out what is the actual topic in the video and the title that I want to get across. And like, I think it’s going to show when, like the next set of content that I make from like, December on because like we’re taking so much time but it’s like you got to really consume yourself with this is what I want to do and like having the regimented schedule. I don’t think it’s as important but you should be consistently doing one or two things a day to put content out there that is reaching the audience that you’re trying to target.

Matt Zahab 
Well said another thing that you do well that most Web3 influencers don’t is we get a bit of a insight and we get snippets into the truck race and your day to day life. Right people fall in love with people more than they fall in love with companies. That’s the classic like what LBJ LeBron James has 100 million followers on Insta Lakers and left 10 mil. Same with Messi and PSG are, Ronaldo man you whatever you want to call it but there’s so many Web3 influencers the some of the biggest ones are anonymous, right? Where we only know them as their non name, we don’t get to see the person behind the cam. We don’t know shit about their life. And that’s what that’s what people want to see at the end of the day. It’s just it’s such an easy unlock and you’re doing a good job at that.

Brycent
I appreciate it sometimes I’ve gotten to the point I was like maybe I’ll I’ve thought about making like a completely separate anonymous YouTube channel that I literally just talk in front of the camera for 10 minutes a day and kind of like having like a video diary to like diagram like how are you feeling that day? But I do think like it’s important to document the journey. That’s something I got from Gary Vee was like, yeah, he talks about how much how you should record and document everything. I know I can’t do all of that. But it’s how much can you actually put out that like, aligns with what you’re doing and aligns with like you as a brand. It’s less important to be the guy who’s like well known in one NFT community, but the idea is make the come unities know you as a brand and be interested in like what you’re doing regardless of like the industry because ultimately that makes you more attractive to everybody. Mr. Beast can be making a video about Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, any fan, and like SoFi financial company might say, hey, we want to pay you a million dollars to sponsor 30 seconds of it, then Mr. Beast finds a way to put so far in the video. And SoFi is getting more impactful, like you know, coverage, then if SoFi said Hey, Mr. Beast, can you make a can you make a five minute video explaining on how to like, you know, sign up for so far as financial services. So it’s like, you have to just create it all around which you want it to be an all-around your brand. And I’m learning more about that like daily and figuring out, like, what are the rewards and incentivization mechanisms I want to provide to my audience to reward them for giving me their time and energy. And I think that we’re still in the mode of like, people being so interconnected with, like, and nothing wrong with being interconnected with projects, but like, focus on how your brand can add value to the project and live you know, separate completely segmented from that brand, like that project if it needed to. 

Matt Zahab 
Yeah, you gotta be able to skate in different arenas. You brought up Gary Vee the goat, obviously, you know, some people think he’s annoying because he preaches, you know, the same shit, but again, you gotta give to the guy. He’s been doing this for what 10 plus years and he’s one of the biggest in not in Crypto just in influencer space in general. You got signed by VaynerSports walking through that conversation that signing? How did they find you? How did you get on their radar walking through that whole process?

Brycent 
Yeah, it was crazy. Um, you know, at the time, I wasn’t following Gary, it was very, like, he was very well known. So I knew very much about his work. And as a kid, like, I would not as a kid, but like, as a teenager, like, you know, when you’re searching how to make money online and all this shit, you know, you’re Gary Vee. He’s like one of the people’s like, you really have to get out there and grind in putting work every single day. And when you’re not doing something, you should be thinking about doing something, but it’s like, you know, you get that whole cliche of like, alright, this dude knows what he’s doing. So actually, I was just randomly checking my DM’s like my requested DM’s at the time and message came in from like a verified you know, person at the time. I wasn’t verified. So I didn’t see if he had ever messaged me or anything, but he followed me. I missed the follow initially, but I saw the DM like a couple days later, he just said keep crushing it. And I like responded like complete fanboy because like, oh shit like this Gary Vee. He’s like, the first person to like, I think acknowledged me from like a traditional standpoint. So I was like, Yo, I really appreciated. And then a week later, I think, his Vice President of gaming Darren Glover, who manages Bugga, who’s like the Fortnight King. Also, yeah, he like reached out and made him jammed out for six months, just talking Web3, and gaming, and investing and in entrepreneurship, and all these cool topics. And then in December of last year, they finally said, Hey, we’re gonna sign you. So I was actually signed, I signed with them in January, but we didn’t actually make it known until I think it was March of last year is when we like said, Okay, Bryce is a part of the Vayner brand than I do the cool collaboration with like Minecraft and Davies and all that good stuff. But yeah, I was signed to them for some time. And the plan was always, we’re not signing you to be the Axie guy, we’re signing you to focus on Web3, Gaming. So a lot of people probably think, oh, you know, Bryce left Axie, because the game I left Axie in December, you know, I was well out before the game died. When I left people were like, Oh, my goodness, like, I can’t believe Bryce is like, it’s not going to be playing Axie anymore. But I, there were some things I didn’t like. And I saw the writing on the wall. And, you know, the Vayner opportunity was there. And I really wanted to focus on expanding my brand and the category. And I think it worked out, you know, we didn’t take a brand deal for an entire year, during my first year with Vayner. And who now we have, I mean, we have games and companies just like

Matt Zahab 
Oh, you probably have their people trying to bark up your tree. 

Brycent 
Yeah. And I’m super grateful for opportunities, because it’s like, I don’t take we don’t take most of them. But like the ones that I do take, it’s like, I provide them with an insane amount of value. I’m never forcing or telling anyone, they should buy something. It’s like, it looks incredibly organic and endemic. Because it’s not a Yeah, it’s not a Oh, Bryce make one YouTube video. And then you never hear about it. Like normally the deals we do are like three month contracts, where it’s like, I have a bucket of content that I’m making. And I’m figuring out how I want to create a story around this and getting folks involved. And that’s what really like, excites me about what I get to do. It’s creating a world where people learn about projects, and learn about the good sides of it. No tokens. No weird shit, just, this is gaming. I think this is cool because of XY and Z. This is why I’m fine partnering with it, and I align it with my brand. And ultimately, we vet them very thoroughly at Vayner. We don’t just jump in anything worse. 

Matt Zahab 
Of course now that makes sense. Let’s jump into not played around but Web3 gaming as a whole here. Yeah. Played earn that. Yeah, I think we’re in the same yacht with that, right. We both agree. It’s absolutely toast

Brycent 
100%. I remember I made a video on it a while back and like people were like, they are they were like, Oh my god. He’s just saying that because he doesn’t play this thing anymore. And it’s like, well, we’re like seven months later and it’s still dead. It’s gone so. So and I don’t think that like people will still use the term because is it’s very much like a buzzword, but the actual application of what played earn was is it’s not going to exist, 

Matt Zahab 
It’s gone. Now, what do you think needs to happen? Because last year, when played earn was the probably the hottest topic in Crypto last year. Everyone said, myself included, I’m sure you said the same, we were all under the impression that play to earn would be the growth catalyst to onboard the masses. You know, like, oh, everyone loves gaming wait a couple of years, until Web3 games are actually developed. And they’re out of the funding and development stage. And they’re beautiful, sexy, you know, fun engaging games, and you have that opportunity to earn as well, we were like, Oh, this will be the thing. Everyone’s kind of Crypto. Now. I couldn’t be further on the other side of the fence. I personally and I think again, you and I are in the same yacht. I believe that. NFTs and in game assets need to be free or very cheap to onboard the masses. Fun needs to be the forefront. And earning should be a secondary or tertiary aspect of the game. If you can do that on the side. Great, but it’s not the reason you play the game. Yeah, how long do you think it takes until the whole sort of Web3 gaming market catches on to this,

Brycent 
I don’t think it’s going to be a long time. To be completely honest, I’m not 100% convinced that a Web3 game is even going to be what leads to catalyst into Web3, gaming as a technology, I think it’s actually going to be some company coming in and creating a really cool and endemic way to bring in like big content creators to enter and participate in Web3 while merging and playing both Web2 and Web3 based games. So I do think that like, games are starting to realize it because they don’t really have a choice in terms of people are smarter now. Like, people aren’t gonna just buy these lame as tokens and wait around to see if they go up and they know that they’re going to be the exit liquidity for some whale who’s like V screeching this like, you know, weird cultish like vibe of, Oh, you just gotta keep building together. It’s like, Yeah, dude, while you’re, you know, yielding a couple $1,000 a day and you know, my $300 investment is gone, or whatever the case may be. So I think that we’re seeing better games rise to the forefront. And then like, public sentiment is going to kill a lot of what the bad games where, like, you can change the game, you can make it look different, you can make the UI different, your reputation behind the game isn’t going to change, people are going to remember that same sentiment, if you tell someone like well, if you say anything about Web3, or NF T gaming, they immediately think, oh, you know, XYZ company got hacked for this X amount of million dollars. And it’s like, that’s not even like, a third of what the you know, the entire Web3 gaming landscape looks like it’s just one time something happened. But it’s like people remember that same way, when people think of crypto now they’re just gonna think of like, FTX crash for the next like, three to five years, you know. So I think that a lot of the catalysts for growth will be the technology, finding interesting ways to impact content creators and Web2. And then also for the games that do create interesting experiences, leveraging content creators that are in Web3, and finding ways to pair them with the Web2 content creators to bring them in in a very easy and seamless way. I think the like, it’s too drastic of saying, Oh, well, we’re gonna launch a game that has NFTs and then try to go get an XQC or someone to stream it. Why not try to create a monthly or weekly tournaments like funnel where people are playing together consistently. And you’re slowly and organically growing a player base, instead of thinking, let me pay this guy a million dollars, I think it’s going to immediately bring players to our game overnight. I mean, Web2 companies try to do that and gaming and it doesn’t work a lot of us know. So at the end of the day, you’re just giving, you know, more liquidity to that streamer, good for him for making that money. He has the, you know, has the following. But ultimately, it’s like, it’s not going to make your steams your game sustainable. It has to be a consistent process of repetition, execution, learning based on the previous like week of execution and making something better. And I think we’ll get there. It’s just a thing of like, it takes time to really see the fruits of that take place. 

Matt Zahab 
And you brought up a great point in regards to onboarding that’s it’s so difficult to onboard to Web3. Like traditional gamers, they have Web2 games. It’s such an easy onboarding aspect you sign up with like Facebook, Google, or your email heck if you know if it’s a mobile game, you literally just scan your face and boom, you’re buzzing. There’s no request you need to do you play the one little quick minute one minute tutorial, your dance and romance and Web3 gaming, you know, funds to centralized exchange, centralized exchange to Metamask. Hopefully it’s on you know, ERC, so then you can at least not need to get a new wallet. It’s just way too difficult. Yeah. I’m a big believer of creating Web3 games that run on blockchain infrastructure that look and feel like Web2 games. I think that’s the secret sauce. We’re gonna real easy. You sign up, you’re good. And then the company behind the scenes takes care of all the Blockchain bullshit for you. 

Brycent 
Yeah, I 100 100% agree with that. And that’s why when you look at like what happened with Reddit and why also why so rare is doing so well is because they don’t require you to do any of the ridiculous steps that like most of these companies are requiring you just jump in you use your credit card or buy cards if you want to buy them. And it’s like that’s the model that needs to be kind of built to around the entire space and go, you should be able to just, I don’t even think the word NFT or Web3 should be used. I use it because it’s like, not don’t use it for content that’s not directed to Web3 people. But like, I think that you should just call it whatever it is. 

Matt Zahab 
It’s a game. That’s it, you know. 

Brycent 
Like, for example, STG football, they don’t call their characters NFT players, they call them Superstars. You’re still buying an on-chain character, and players are buying these on-chain packs. But they’re not actually actively saying, Oh, you’re buying an NFT, you’re buying a Superstar in STG football. And people see that and they’re like, oh, yeah, I’ll purchase a pack. And I mean, they’re selling a ton of packs, which is like really, really awesome to see, you know, I think they’ve sold like over 1000 of their packs in total, which is pretty exceptional for a bear market game that like it’s still growing and creating a sick product. So I’m excited to see kind of what the future holds for a lot of projects that are building this way. 

Matt Zahab
You’re big on the sports game ay? 

Brycent
I like sports. I like FPS I like MMO and things of that sort if it makes sense. But I think that like sports games and FPS are the easiest to replicate card games are okay, but I’m not a big card game guy. But sports games in FPS are quick, they’re easy to replicate, you can make a really cool game in a couple of years. Anyone who thinks they’re gonna make an MMO in like, a couple of years, or even two or three years, that’s like a long, otherworldly. I’m just like, dude, most MMO’s don’t even take off. Like they’re so hard to build an MMO that people want to play. Because these games normally require like so much in depth thought process and onboarding and things then you add the crypto layer on top of that, and they’re not adding it in a seamless way. Normally, it’s like really hectic, so I’m very much bullish that like sports games will leave the category and at a more rapid pace sports games in FPS than like other genres for sure. 

Matt Zahab
I feel like sports has a big not Stranglehold per se but sports games are definitely front running top Shots super clean very easy and then you have course so rare so we’re also just launched the basketball version as well. Yeah, I haven’t gotten that looks pretty sweet though. I saw your squad you have a freakin Dream Team. 

Brycent 
Oh my god um, I need to start playing it a little bit better but um yeah, I’m excited man we got some I got some interesting things coming up over the next like week or so is so rare that was gonna get announced. So I’m super hyped to be doing stuff with him on the basketball front. And it makes total sense like Fantasy Basketball, you own the characters. You can leverage them in games, like they have a model that works and they expand it in multiple categories and like sports, which is so cool to see.

Matt Zahab 
No, it’s an absolute great time folks to take a quick break and give a massive shout-out to our sponsor of the show and that is PrimeXBT and we got Bryce Clap and Aman as well, we’d love to see it. Shout out PrimeXBT been using for a hot minute as they offer a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders. Doesn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a vet, you can easily design and customize your layouts and widgets to best fit your trading style. PrimeXBT also hooking us up if you’re listener of the pod, you can use the promo code CRYPTONEWS50 that’s CRYPTONEWS50. All one word to receive 50% of your deposit credited to your trading account to get noticed CRYPTONEWS50,  CRYPTONEWS50 are all one word to receive 50% your deposit credited to your trading account. Now back to the show with Bryce. We just went over a couple of games I want to hear a couple more that you got locked and loaded on the dock you talked about the football game what’s the name of football game again? American football. 

Brycent 
STG football like it’s called Super Team Game Football STG for short 

Matt Zahab 
And it looks like it almost looks like a sort of version of street remember NFL? 

Brycent 
Like style football and dude wouldn’t think is as addicting as it is but you don’t control a full team you control one player like your so when you open a pack you get cards at different positions and the cards have different rarities and you control one player in the game and it’s 4v4 so if I’m one quarterback I can have my homie receiver another guy have running back and then another guy and tight end and all of you have like you know your headsets on and you’re chatting the people that you chat with in game so it’s like your job or football you got to do your job and that’s how you win game so I think it’s like a really cool spin on a collaborative way to make football more entertaining and fun. And dude, the game loops are so quick and funny like I mean I probably put at least like 20 hours into the game so far and it’s like very it’s only been out for a couple of weeks so I think they’re doing some incredible things for sure but I have other games if you want me to go deeper.

Matt Zahab 
Yeah count show some give me some good games here.

Brycent
Oh my God I’m not shilling because none of these games pay me except for RT I’m going to show RT because RT is dope as fuck they we have worked on a partnership with them which has been sick. But it’s got to be like a beer-pong game on your phone that runs high-quality graphics. But you don’t download it as an app and plays in the browser as a high-quality game that has interconnectivity with the NFTs that you own in the game. It’s so sick. And if you’re a fan of like beer pong, and you want a fun little addicting game to play on your phone, I definitely think it’s one of those I play with my mom now and she’s like, my mom’s like a huge gamer dude like she plays that she likes to play Ice Poker like they’re Sit and Go tournaments so she’s a big gamer. Another one grit is like a Wild West Red Dead Redemption Battle Royale, that one is going to be insane like I’m really hyped for grid. And I think that is going to like be a big player in the category because one the team that’s building it is very web to native, and they’re building a really cool ecosystem on top of it. Planet Mojo, if you’re familiar with like Teamfight Tactics, League of Legends, it’s like that, but with a faster game loop and a better competitive I would think like, system. So it’s like, you put eight people in the lobby, you played three qualifying rounds, the top four players qualify for the semi-finals and then the top to play in the finals in third place match and then you like earn XP and different things in the game. But all these are Web3 native games that are that are going to launch and do really cool things. Shrapnel and dead dropper, two really sick FPS games, all triple A, they’re gonna be super high quality. And then also Chibi Dinos. It’s like NBA Jam style basketball game with dinosaurs, and I’ve been playing a ton of that as well. So those are probably like my ones to watch. If someone’s looking for some games to like, you know, keep their eyes on. I think those are gonna be sick.

Matt Zahab   
You got your hand on the pulse better than most of us do. I’m a big hockey fan. We got to you know, good cause that

Brycent 
Portion was the Martian League. There’s a hockey game called Martian League that’s coming out or something or Martian Space League. Like I haven’t played it, but they’re I think they have they’re endorsed by like a hockey player too

Matt Zahab 
Well you got to send me those notes early on, send me that tweet, because I was gonna ask you if, if any, anyone’s been there fun, funny story. I chatted with Bill Daley. He was like the pretty much the Vice Commissioner of the National Hockey League. This was back in January of last year. And we won of the companies that used to work for we almost sort of won that tender to build their game, but they didn’t do it just because they lost so much money with COVID and everything. So could have been fun. They could have made some money. But then again, it could have been a bit of a shit show now. Bryce we got to talk about LootBolt. Yeah, let’s do it. You. I’ve been seeing this everywhere. I’ve checked with the platform. It looks sweet. You guys sort of built a full suite platform to help content creation and influencers get to the next level.

Brycent 
Yeah, it’s um, it’s interesting because I, we came across the use case when I was like, looking for someone to like, do work for my own brand, like I need someone to edit a video or create a thumbnail. And what we realized very early on was that a big problem with Web3 was the best community builders often you don’t even see them. Like, if you’re not active on Twitter and Twitter Spaces tweeting all day, no one knows that you’re an important integral community builder. And no one has a sense of the work that you’ve done in Web3. But another issue that we saw was that this is a very important role for how brands and Web3 grow whether or not they’re Web3, native or not. So what we realized was, there is a market for creating a platform that can be built on top of Discord that helps projects scale organic audiences, and cultivate their communities in a much stronger way. So we built out an automated payment system that allows you to launch like I mean launch like proof of work based prompts, and have your community compete and do them so initially, we call them bounties like you can launch bounties directly in your Discord and payout on multiple Blockchains. And payout in NFTs for having people do work in Discord. And we know you know Discord has 200 million monthly active users is the earliest first use case. But now we call them bolts and the platform is LootBolt. So bolts are like small micro work and gig type jobs that your community can take on and earn Crypto earn status, earn free experiences and rewards and also earned NFTs if you want for doing them. And we work with a ton of games. I mean, even in the like in the bear, I think like since pre alpha launch ran around like 14 or 15,000 users. And we jumped 4,000 users in the last week alone. But you know, the idea behind it is if you have a if you have an NFT project, right? And you have 100,000 people in your Discord, only a certain amount of those people can actually afford the NFTs right? Only a certain amount of them are gonna own the NFTs. So you have this large conglomerate of users who are in your Discord that are doing absolutely nothing untapped. could add Yeah, they could add a ton of value if they leverage their passions and skills to help grow your project. And they have incentive to grow the project because they are a part of your community, you have incentive to reward them because if they grow your product, it lowers your cost-per-customer purchase model. So now it isn’t a thing of like, we have to go out and spend 20 bucks to get one customer to give us you know, 20 or $30 worth of value. You can have free users that can provide sweat equity into your business or real work equity provide more value than maybe the person who randomly buys an NFT and where this is like creating connectivity for brands outside of Web3 is think about Starbucks. Starbucks doesn’t want to launch an NFT Starbucks has a reward system where you know you purchase five coffees and you get one free and maybe you know for Starbucks that’s a hey we are giving up $5 per customer at a $25 cost per customer model. But what if I told Starbucks, hey, you could get $200 in value by having people do sweat equity-based work like a go and create a Tiktok for our Christmas activation and what and one of our Starbucks stores and we’ll give you a free small coffee, Starbucks give out small coffees all day, but one of those TikTok’s goes viral and gets 100,000 plays, how many more users are going to go to Starbucks and buy a coffee. So it’s like finding we found a new way to help organic companies and products and projects and even like, content creators organically market and grow and build more scalable communities that are reward based. So you know, we’re going to launch a UI very soon. And on the UI, it’s going to be a combination of like, almost like a LinkedIn and a Fiver, you’re going to be able to see as a community member, all the work that you’ve done across the communities, the types of jobs that you’ve done your interest, you’re going to be able to pretty much have a decentralized resume that shows what you’ve done as a community member. And not only will it help you within that community, but maybe it helps you get a job as oh, we’re looking for a community manager, well, this guy has worked in a community, he’s done 15 bolts of work, and you know, his ratings pretty high. Let’s reach out to him. So maybe we can help people find the next generation of future of work. And that’s really where Bolt is going. And what we’re focused on. And we know it’s a niche that’s there. Of course, there are some other companies that are looking to do similar things, but we feel very good about where we are. 

Matt Zahab 
That’s crazy. So it’s almost like a decentralized Web3 Gleam.io kind of thing.

Brycent 
Well not really like Gleam because I think Gleam is like very just contest driven. It’s less about actual, like, happy and when you go in Yeah, it’s less about community and doing work. Like for us we care less about, oh, my goodness, can we have 20 people click a link or click a button and like pretend like that, like that’s your community know, if we launch a prompt in Discord and say, Hey, here’s a $500, USDC bounty to have someone design our you know, our community banner or design our next, like, you know, collaboration drop with a certain project, how can you like get the best work from the best community members and grow your product as a biproduct of leveraging your community. So it’s more so for people who actually want to like, be involved. Now, if you wanted to use it for simple things, like what Gleam can do you can, but the really cool part about it is it’s like it lives directly in Discord. So you can leverage your audience to collaborate directly where they live, and interact Daily and get the most value out of that.

Matt Zahab 
How does the plugin or the API work for it to connect with Discord like as a user, like if I, let’s say, you know, my disease community, I got my whatever four people in there they come in, and they even know that LootBolt is running the show, or what would it sort of be not even front of mind or visible,

Brycent 
It’s there. Like when you put the bot, it’s right now in Discord, it’s a bot. So you just click a link, like we send you a generated link to like, put it in your Discord server. And it’s like installing a bot into your Discord, then it generates a couple of channels, users can actually interact with the bot and check their like user profile directly in Discord and a bunch of really cool things. So it operates as a Discord bot, but like once it’s in there, and it’s like used once where if you launch one thing, users very quickly become accustomed to using it and it gets like a lot of work and traction. So I mean, if that’s something you ever want to do, like, let me know, we get we can definitely throw it in there for you to play around with and get your thoughts as well. 

Matt Zahab 
So what was the need for this? Was this just like you working with so many Web3 companies in your own community, that’s obviously very powerful. Now, you were just like, damn, there’s, you know, I can tap into my community. It’s being very untapped right now. And then next thing came about and LootBolt was created.

Brycent 
Well, I mean, originally, when we were raising money as an org, we were going to be a Web3 gaming guilt. But you know, I really early on notice that play to earn models that weren’t sustainable. And it wasn’t something to run a company off of. So we pivoted, we had an internal tooling house that was basically the early prototype for Bolt. And eventually, after meeting with some of our investors, they were like, you know, dive down this route, try to enterprise it make this a much larger solution. That’s how Bolt came about. But we realized that there’s just a lot of people sitting in Discord, doing nothing that have talents that can be leveraged. And if we can find ways to make that valuable for companies, companies would have a better way to interact and grow their audiences. So it was kind of a niche that as a content creator, who like knows what it takes to build communities I stumbled into, and like, saw it as a problem in the market. And then we just started focusing heavily on how do we solve this problem for customers. And then it resulted into like, you know, partnerships with Decentral Games, and Planet Mojo, and WildCard all these really cool companies that have raised money to build incredible games. And even now, you know, we recently announced a partnership with MasterCard, and we’re building with them to like, expand it to a lot of their client base. So it’s cool to kind of expand out and see how it’s been able to add value to different organizations. But ultimately, I do think that there’s a future of work in Web3, and what it will look like will look a lot different than what we’re used to an IRL jobs. But we think that we can be the platform that helps aggregate that and bring it to the forefront of what Web3 looks like in a use case that makes total sense.

Matt Zahab 
I wouldn’t bet against you, dude. So I’m all for it. I love to See it. We got a segment on the show called the Hot Take Factory. We put our shipping goods on we get up there knee high boots, hazmat suit, we’re in the Hot Take Factory I know you got a couple. Let’s do a couple good Hot Takes doesn’t have to be Web3 related can be sports, food, geography, politics, if you really want to get spicy, you name it. But give me a couple of Bryce Hot Takes

Brycent 
Yeah, I’ll try to come up with a with a Web3 related one. At the end, I would say my first Hot Take is I think Elon Musk, buying Twitter $44 billion is going to look like a discount in five years. And when he makes it go public, again, it’ll go public at like, five times the valuation I think it’ll be worth like three, like three to $500 billion when he takes it public again. So that’d be like my social Hot Take, I would say my sports Hot Take the New York Yankees sign Aaron judge had at the at a billion dollar contract, then he’s gonna be the first billion dollar MLB player ever. And I think that they’re gonna like try to make the numbers so crazy to where no one can match it. And then probably my Web3 Hot Take is JPEG’s are incredibly overrated. And the whole idea that IP and Interoperability and within like games that have no strong enough standing IP to like, attract large audiences on its own is important. I don’t think like interoperability is important. So you’ve reached an audience of like a million people who really are like diehard fans of what of what you’re creating. So I’m not an interoperability guy. But I also think that a lot of these Web3 based jpg projects or NFTss are going to find ways to create tech solutions or products that go beyond the solutions that we’ve seen currently. So I think we’re gonna see a resurgence before we see like, more pain. I think after this pain run is done. We’ll start to like see things like move up in a more rapid way.

Matt Zahab 
We’ll jump Yeah, no, those are those are very good points. You’re a big sports guy who’s winning the Super Bowl this year. And who’s winning the NBA Finals? 

Brycent 
Oh, Super Bowl this year, Damn. That’s a tough one if I had to pick, I know like the Eagles Train has been super high. And I think they’re a really, really good team. But I think it’s the year for the Kansas City Chiefs to like, turn it back up a notch and win a Super Bowl. So I’m gonna take the Kansas City Chiefs over the people are gonna hate when I say this. I’m gonna say the Kansas City Chiefs over the Dallas Cowboys.

Matt Zahab 
Spicy. I don’t know if the Cowboys can get it done. But 

Brycent 
I know it doesn’t seem like it could happen, but for some reason, I really do believe that like they’re going to turn it on and I’m not a fan of either of those teams. I’m a Denver Broncos fan. But I do think that and I would say for basketball. My Hot Take is the Memphis Grizzlies lose in five games to the Milwaukee Bucks and NBA Finals.

Matt Zahab 
Memphis Wow. I got the Bucs winning two. I don’t think Yan is tough man once Middleton gets healthy either way too deep Football. I’m a Dolphins guy. Our team’s trash every year we get this year though. We got a scary offense to his playing out of his mind. I He’s eaten. I love to see laughing It’s fun. It’s nice to see those teal unis running around. So 

Brycent 
They’re nasty. They’re so good. They can make a run this year though. Like they have the team. You guys just picked up a Bradley Chubb for my team. The Broncos. So you guys have a squad and you have depth and I mean, a wattle makes what makes you a chittos. So I mean, I think that team is very is very strong.

Matt Zahab
Even though we put up 35 A game I don’t see how you can win allowing 30 game though. Defense wins championships and our defense is an absolute it’s Swiss Cheese. We have holes throughout the whole thing. 

Brycent 
Oh good though. If you can outscore people won’t matter.

Matt Zahab 
It is what it is Bryce, what a treatment really appreciate you coming on. It’s been a treat, seeing your rise to the top and yeah men, really appreciate it. You’ve been motivating. And I need to start doing what you do. I got to take a page out of your book. To start streaming, I got to start recording way more content, I start repurposing it. I know you’ve been calling out YouTube shorts. And that is such an untapped little piece of viral content that a lot of people are buzzing on. So appreciate you coming on, bro. Before you leave, can you please let our listeners know where they can find you LootBolt and other projects online and on socials?

Brycent 
Yeah, you can find me at @Brycent on Twitter, @Brycent_ on Tiktok. But most places, if you just search Brycent on Google, it’s going to pull me up outside of that lootbolt.com is where you can fine LootBolt and dude just keep crushing it. I mean, you’re making content right now. I love your podcast style and your format and I definitely see it as like one that’s going to be expanding and growing in this space. And like if I had any, just this simple advice, it would be just keep trying to like it maybe it doesn’t seem like like it doesn’t sound good on paper but upselling to bigger guests. So like you have me on like next week what I would do or like I would now go and like reach out to Darren Glover, who’s the head of gaming at Vayner and say Yo, Darren, you want to come on to talk about gaming, and then go get Darren Glover. And then you know, take that and the messages have the message be Oh, I chatted with Brycent about this, I would love to have you want to get your perspective. Then after you chat with Darren Glover. See if Darren Glover can link you with AJV and say, and go to AJ and say, Hey, AJ, I chatted with Darren Glover and Brycent about gaming. I know that you run VaynerSports, and you are an avid venture capitalist and believer in Web3, and what you guys have been doing with the VaynerSports Pass, I would love to have you on my podcast for 45 minutes. And then like, say that, you know, we both recommended you to chat with him, like upsell yourself into bigger guest to grow the podcast because it’s like, you have a great format. You’re you talk to people very well. And it’s like, it’s fun and conversational. It doesn’t feel like a drag or boring, but like, that’s how you really get to that next guest. And I think that like is how you do it in any realm. If you want to go deep on the gaming ones, that’s how you do it. I mean, you also if you wanted to go complete other side, you know, I could say hey Bryce, can you connect me with Castro, boom, now you can find a way to get into like the doors with the optic folks and expand your branches out. I mean, there’s so many ways that you can like, take it to like get more engaging guests and the more engaging guests is what really takes it off from one thing and I think I do I think I’m like a decently sized person in the space but it’s like now you go don’t get someone that’s like five times my size and like really ramped that shit up. I mean, look at the Mario Nawfal Guy. I mean, he I don’t agree with everything that he does. And I know that there is some stuff around him being like kind of like scammer con artists, whatever the hell do Abel he upsell himself from guest to guest to guest to guests until we get to the point where you gotta get soap. Yeah, you gotta get so big enough that Elon Musk was like, I’m gonna come listen, because now all of a sudden, he looks like he has such a high level of authenticity. And it’s not that it can’t happen. It’s just most people like I can never get there. But what are the steps that can like you can break it down to the most like easily deducible standpoint of I can go from point A to point C by doing thing one thing two things three, and it’s not like you’re not adding value like this podcast has added a ton of value to like my last 45 or 50 minutes but I think like that would be sick to see. 

Matt Zahab
Appreciate that man. Great advice. And we got to sign a virtual agreement that you’ll be a reoccurring guest of a couple of months we’ll have on shoot the shit but let me know when I got you love it man. Bryce you’re the man appreciate you and can’t wait till next time 

Brycent 
Much Love brother.

Matt Zahab 
Folks, what an episode with Brycent and the big dog in space Web3 gaming influencer and CEO of LootBolt we love to see it he was dropping knowledge bombs left right and center. As always. I will include all the important stuff in the show notes. You can find him on all socials just type in Brycent, @Brycent_.  What an episode folks if you enjoyed this one I hope you did please do subscribe. I mean world’s my team and I speak in the team love you guys and to the listeners you that GOAT to keep on growing those bags and keep on staying healthy, wealthy and tap bye for now and we’ll talk soon.