Nov 3, 2021 · 1h 10m · my-first-million
The Next Big Social Media Network Will Be On the Blockchain. Nader Al-Naji Tells Us Why.
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of My First Million, hosts Sean Puri and Sam Parr interview DeSo founder Nader Al-Naji to examine how decentralized Layer-1 architecture and creator coins can dismantle Web2 social media monopolies. They explore BitClout's chaotic origins, the mechanics of open social protocols, and the trillion-dollar potential of on-chain creator economies.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 49% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 6.3 Guest teaching 3.8 Guest disagreement 1.6 The hosts pushing back 3.8
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 23:15 Nader defends token distribution metrics against insider accusations
Nader firmly pushes back against the hosts' suggestions of insider favoritism by emphasizing that no single investor owns more than 5% of supply and that backers hold liquid tokens rather than privileged corporate equity.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 22:14 Shaan and Sam dismantle Nader's organic funding narrativeShaan and Sam refuse to accept Nader's portrayal of spontaneous internet deposits, bluntly calling out his institutional VC roadshow and teasing him for playing coy.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:01:55 Nader demonstrates how open content solves global app localizationNader educates the hosts on how centralized platforms fail in foreign markets like Japan and India, showing how an open blockchain database allows local developers to build culturally tailored front-ends.
The host holds their own ▶ 38:49 Shaan dismantles buzzwords to re-explain creator coinsShaan cuts through Nader's abstract theoretical pitch about democratization and delivers a superior real-world explanation of creator coin dynamics that forces Nader to concede Shaan's communication prowess.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Nader Al-Naji and BitClout's Rebranding to DeSo | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Shaan sets up the interview with a clear breakdown of BitClout's original viral growth mechanics and token model. Nader clarifies the distinction between the underlying DeSo blockchain infrastructure and the BitClout prototype app. | |
| Blockchain Specialization and DeSo's Decoupled App Layer | 7 | 4 | 2 | 6 | Shaan articulates the technical trade-offs across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Flow before directly challenging Nader on whether anyone actually uses the hundred apps claimed to be built on DeSo. Nader counters with metrics from live third-party apps like Diamond and Polygram to illustrate the decoupled app-layer strategy. | |
| Turning Social Media Inside Out: Open Content Monopolies | 8 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Shaan delivers an extended, highly articulate breakdown comparing centralized walled-garden database monopolies to open public blockchain architectures. Nader enthusiastically agrees and expands on native coin value capture and creator fee splits. | |
| DeSo Governance, Treasury Mechanics, and Foundation Architecture | 4 | 5 | 2 | 5 | Sam interrogates Nader on operational reality, questioning his anonymous-style dark room setup and the unusual treasury mechanics. Nader explains how 5,000 BTC was raised into a headless smart treasury prior to establishing the non-profit foundation. | |
| The 'Diamond Hands' Persona and Early Launch Chaos | 7 | 3 | 3 | 8 | Shaan and Sam forcefully challenge Nader's narrative that random internet strangers spontaneously deposited millions, calling out the VC roadshow and claiming he is downplaying his salesmanship. Nader concedes that institutional conversations accounted for roughly $30 million of the launch capital. | |
| Deconstructing Crypto Backlash and Rebuilding Public Trust | 7 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Shaan presents his psychological thesis on crypto backlash, arguing that public anger stems from early insider liquidity rather than technical flaws. Nader validates the observation with historical parallels to Ethereum's launch controversies. | |
| Creator Coins Explained: Cash Flows, Royalties, and Alignment | 8 | 3 | 2 | 7 | When Nader resorts to abstract tech jargon about 'democratizing cash flows', Shaan directly cuts him off and reframes creator coins using a tangible fitness influencer scenario. Nader acknowledges that Shaan explained the value proposition far more effectively than he did. | |
| Nader Al-Naji's Background: From Basis to DeSo Resilience | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Sam leads a biographical line of questioning regarding Nader's Princeton background, Google tenure, and the decision to return $140 million to investors after Basis shut down. Nader reflects humbly on personal runway and emotional equanimity. | |
| Trillion-Dollar Decentralized Vision and LA Celebrity Stories | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Shaan outlines the asymmetric upside of betting on decentralized social networks even at a low probability of success. Nader shares anecdotes from private LA dinners pitch sessions with major celebrities like Kim Kardashian. | |
| Investment Strategies on DeSo: NFT Royalties vs. Meta-Analysis | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Nader outlines his quantitative strategy of investing in NFT creators based on cash flow yields, while Shaan counters with his own early playbook of buying on-chain data analysts and front-running billionaire coin buybacks. | |
| Asymmetric Platform Advantages, Global Localization, and Market Cycles | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Nader explains the structural advantages of open platforms in non-US markets where local developers can out-iterate centralized Silicon Valley giants. He contextualizes crypto market cycles with a story about OpenSea's inception during the CryptoKitties crash. | |
| Ecosystem Recommendations, Strategic Timing, and Final Reflections | 6 | 4 | 1 | 4 | Shaan presses Nader on why high-profile institutional investors and celebrities haven't been actively posting on the platform. Nader explains his deliberate strategy of holding back mainstream promotional waves until third-party clients reached sufficient maturity. |
Statements from this episode (25)
Al-Naji: Over 100 apps are being built on DeSo
“Now they're actually over a hundred apps being built on the actual blockchain itself, which we call decentralized social or DSO.”
Al-Naji: DeSo is the only blockchain solving post storage and indexing
“The biggest one is like the storage and the indexing of posts, which is a very hard problem for blockchains to solve. And I don't think anyone Other than Deeso really has had a good solution to that.”
Al-Naji: Diamond App is already more popular than BitClout
“Diamondapp.com is actually more popular than BitCloud already now. So I think it just passed it, even though it launched like a week ago.”
Al-Naji: DeSo's core strategy is to avoid building end-user products
“But really, like, Sean, you're touching on our strategy, which is, we actually don't want to build any products at all. I didn't even want to launch BitClout, ideally.”
Al-Naji: Next social wave will separate blockchain backends from apps
“I think that with this kind of next wave of social, I think what we're going to see is kind of a separation of concerns where you have this blockchain, which is the diesel blockchain that powers, you know, kind of the back end of all of these things. And then …”
Al-Naji: Ad business models force platforms to keep content databases closed
“Today, you know, Facebook, Twitter you know, they're really about monopolizing content. Like you said, keeping it under lock and key so that they can show ads on it. And if they allow anyone else to build an app, like if they allow another company to build an …”
Shaan Puri: Facebook and Twitter pay zero ad revenue share to creators
“Us, the dancing monkeys that go sit on Twitter all day, coming up with interesting ideas, giving them the interesting content. We get zero, right? So like if I go check my Twitter ad split or my Facebook ad split, and Facebook made, I don't know how many tens …”
Al-Naji: Open social protocols will shift value accrual to creators
“I think we might see you know, basically a splitting of the market by a bunch of different apps that kind of charge small fees to allow the creators to do what they do, but that's competitive as opposed to monopolistic and will hopefully result in a lot more o…”
Al-Naji: About $80 million is currently invested in DeSo creator coins
“I think right now there's about eighty million dollars invested in people's coins, which to me is actually really low.”
Al-Naji: DeSo raised 5,000 BTC via 44,000 automated transactions before incorporating
“You know, that 5000 Bitcoin I mentioned all that money actually came in before there was any corporate entity set up to do anything. And so essentially the way it worked was the blockchain was running, and if you sent Bitcoin to this treasury wallet the blockc…”
Shaan Puri invested $100,000 into BitClout during its early launch
“I sent a 100,000 dollars into Big Cloud or whatever to get, it wasn't even called Deeso at the time.”
Al-Naji: Basis raised $140M and returned all capital to investors
“My last company, which was called basis, you know, where I raised a hundred and forty million dollars and then it didn't work wound up giving, you know, deciding to kind of do what I think is the right thing, give all the money back.”
Al-Naji: Top VCs bought ~$30M of DeSo, none owning >5%
“I think about thirty million dollars worth was that which is, I think, not, not a huge percent, and no one has, no one owns more than five percent of the supply from that.”
Al-Naji: Early VCs own no equity, only DESO tokens
“All of them actually don't own, importantly, they don't own equity in anything. All of their interest is in the same Asset that you or I hold, which is DSO.”
Shaan Puri: Crypto backlash is driven by resentment of instant liquid wealth
“I think that people don't like when someone gets rich without quote unquote earning it, and I think what people saw is that the insiders, so the people who created it, or maybe the early buyers, they bought so early on the bonding curve, they got so early on, …”
Al-Naji: The next crypto wave will be creator coins after NFTs
“This wave was about NFTs. I think the next wave is going to be about creator coins, also known as social tokens.”
Al-Naji: A creator coin generated over $100K in royalties on DeSo
“NFTs are already there and creators have made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of that, like tens of thousands. I think for one of them, they had over a 100,000 dollars flow to their coin already through the creator coin royalties.”
Shaan Puri: Social tokens will make being an early tastemaker a paid job
“The good thing that I think will come of this, it'll make being a tastemaker and a curator, like a job pretty much. You can actually get paid for having good taste, for following, for believing in somebody early on”
Returning $140 million to Basis investors depleted Al-Naji's personal savings
“With Basis my last company where I raised a hundred forty million and returned it I actually had less money after that in, in my bank account than when I started it, which is basically about three years of runway from my, like, Google and D.D. Shaw savings, ri…”
Shaan Puri: Successful decentralized social network will be a multi-trillion-dollar project
“And I think it's gonna be a huge project. I think it is gonna be a multi-trillion dollar project Whenever it works.”
Shaan Puri: BitClout has a sub-5% chance of succeeding, but huge payoff
“I'm not saying that this one will work. I think there's still probably a sub five percent chance that this works. And I said, but if it works, the payoff is huge.”
Al-Naji: DeSo NFT artist coins are underpriced relative to royalty cash flows
“Really the thing that I you know, like my, the hedge fund side of me really likes is NFT artists, because for NFT artists even today, not theoretical all of them set royalties that go to their coins. And so there's real cash flows there that are often like tot…”
Shaan Puri: Early conversations on new social networks are 70% about the platform
“Anytime you build a social network, at first, 70% of the conversation on that social network is about the social network.”
Al-Naji: Open content gives decentralized social platforms an asymmetric advantage over incumbents
“I won't say the word it's inevitable, but I think it's actually very asymmetric, like in favor of decentralized platforms actually winning. The main reason being that I think when all the content is open and anyone can build on it, I think that the speed of it…”
Al-Naji: I told celebrity investors to hold off using BitClout early
“No, no, that's actually mostly me. So we have a lot of people who are, like, really big names, not just in VC, but also, like, in Hollywood and all that stuff who bought DSO. And they asked me, like, Natter, like, is now the time, like, to really, like, bring …”