tldr of apefest charleston 2026 after 3 days: - 1000+ apes here, probably close to 2k ppl in total. way more than i expected. ppl traveled from asia, europe, dubai and everywhere, some with 3 layovers just to be here. - first time in charleston, but everywhere i walked, i ran into apes. a new city doesn’t feel lonely when you have friends who truly love and care about you. - lots of OGs, lots of new apes. not many ppl talked about floor price. everyone was just happy to see each other. 2021 vibes. - some ppl spent the equivalent of 1 mutant to 1 bayc just to attend. for OGs, getting together means more than the time and money. - beeple studios was packed. cars parked probably a mile down the street. around 60% apes and 40% non-ape collectors. - venue, visuals, music and experiences were top tier. been to hundreds of events, but ape events always stand out for their attention to detail and taste. personally think taste is a big moat in the ai era. - mudwater purchase line was long. ppl were just having fun buying and ripping packs. - funny that announcements happened online while everyone was having fun IRL with terrible internet - apes had their own area with performances, food, drinks and experiences. you can tell the team and beeple studios put a lot of effort into this. - ppl were genuinely kind, helping each other without asking. even when things didn’t go as planned, the vibes stayed amazing. - biggest takeaway: BAYC is way more than an NFT collection. price can change overnight, but culture, relationships and loyalty take years to build. - always respect builders who build during hard times and communities who show up at lows. so good to see you all and safe travels, please leave a gm for me to follow if you went but we didn’t get to meet. appreciate you!

day 2 charleston apefest takeaways: -main event at beeple studios. sooooo many ppl! (1000+) cars parked on the street probably all the way a mile away. this might be the first apefest that invited other collectors (beeple’s list). ratio was about 6 apes / 4 non apes. -all announcements happened online. funny that we were all together irl but with such bad internet signals we couldn’t even get updated info lol -venue and setup were really nice. ape elements everywhere. -best club when it comes to taste. i’ve been to hundreds of events but ape events are always very detail oriented. from visuals to music to overall experience. personally think this is a big moat for the team. taste is gold in the ai era. -apes had a separate area with performances, food, drinks and experiences. -vibes were amazing! ppl are genuinely kind and help each other without being asked. reminded me of the 2021 vibes. -you can tell the yuga team and beeple studios put a lot of time and effort into this. respect. -one small detail i really liked. usually when you don’t sign up for an event, you’re just told to leave. but at the yuga builders brunch, they took ppl who didn’t register to a bar next door, got them drinks and let them hang out until seats opened up. super sweet and thoughtful. -there were only events i couldn’t make it to, not like there were no events to go to. -good balance of fun + social + news + performances. offset was dope! worth my time being here. will come again. it’s the ppl and the little details that make apefest special.

Say less So nice to meet you! @TomCruise, thank you for being such a kind person.

11th year in sf i don’t think i’ll ever leave.

See me in Shenzhen🇨🇳 And Seoul for KBW 🫶

Happy international cat day to all cat lovers. 🐱

visited a few robotics companies + factories in shenzhen last month. a few very unscientific takeaways after seeing things irl: -humanoids are exciting, but still feel early. maybe 5–10 years before we see real mass adoption. a lot of what’s impressive today is still very demo-driven. -near term, i’m probably more bullish on boring robots. robots that are designed to do one/few job(s) really well or special uses cases will get adopted much faster. hotel delivery robots are already everywhere in china and just…work. -data is still a huge bottleneck. but something i found interesting: most companies i talked to don’t really want to buy third party data. they’d rather collect their own because of privacy, quality, and how specific the data needs to be for each use case. -the biggest “oh shit” moment for me was probably the manufacturing side. in shenzhen, you can prototype something, change a component, find another supplier, test it and manufacture it all within this insanely dense ecosystem. it made me wonder: if robotics really becomes the next massive hardware platform, how does the us compete with china on manufacturing and speed of iteration? no strong conclusion yet. still learning. but seeing the physical supply chain in person definitely changed how i think about the robotics race.

gm

I heard that all my friends can see me now. Hey 👋 Just had a bored ape tokyo gathering during WebX. Thanks @BoredApeYC @yugalabs for making it possible. IRL is alpha. own a bored ape, gain a worldwide family.