Vibe Markets and Consumer Insights: A Deep Dive with KZ from Chomp

Welcome to FinTech TV.

I'm Remy Blair.

We're coming to you from Sallana Accelerate here in New York City at Pier 36, and I'm joined by Casey, who's the co-founder of Chomp Gator Labs.

So today we're not just here, you and I, above the floor of Salon Accelerate, but we're also joined by a special guest who is aggregator as well.

So it's 3 of us talking about Cho, and when we think about how all of us.

Access information in this digital age we're looking at our smartphones, all this information, whether it's breaking news or other data.

So when it comes to information, how do we really get to the heart of what's happening and figure out what's important?

Yeah, it's uh it's actually something it's on all of our minds, right, especially in the age of AI, the cost of producing information is lower and lower every day, but there isn't a standard to evaluate either.

Individual like entity produce information or AI produce information what is true, what is not what is high signal so that's a pretty big problem.

What we see when we talk to users is that they are spending more and more time looking through different information sources or different markets trying to aggregate on their own to find out what they should believe and what they shouldn't believe.

And especially when it comes to subjective information like opinions, um, it's very, very hard for them to find trustworthy opinion. and that's pretty much why we designed this product.

Um, the, the company is called Gator Labs because it's an information aggregator and we actually decided to attack this problem from a very consumer first angle, which is why we have a mascot and our front end right now our uh our flagship front end is a quiz game where, um, an individual is looking at a piece of information.

So this could be something really fun this could be, uh, it's hot.

Sandwich, yes or no.

This could be an image and say is this AI generated image or not?

Uh, this could also be, um, is Trump going to win a year ago, right?

And every user is tasked to or they're playing a game of sharing what they think and also sharing a estimate or a prediction of what they think the crowd thinks.

And we have a set of uh research backed algorithm under the hood that takes reality and expected reality and.

Calculates what we call the best answer, which is the closer to true social consensus.

And that may not be 100% correct all the time, but it gives us a much more trustworthy signal because not only is it market-based, but people are actually paying to bet on that market without realizing, which gives it more manipulation resistance.

And yeah, we use that signal for a lot of different things, hopefully to put people at ease in looking at information on the internet.

Or for that are for trading uh or for taste making looking at emerging beliefs, you know, and I think you bring up a lot of important points there in this day and age, especially when we have uh chat GPT access to artificial intelligence, and it's so easy just as humans once we get used to something we go back to that.

So can you share any examples that surprised you when it comes to beliefs that you thought were true but in Actuality they weren't just to dispel some of these myths out there, yeah, um, so one example that I gave you earlier is related to, uh, a product that is built in crypto uh called Hyperliquid, right?

So it's a very popular product or so we think, um, so the question that we ask is, are you using hyper liquid and, uh, do you know that our demographic are people who aren't familiar with crypto because our current form factor is, uh, the most user friendly inside of wallets so.

Um, what we ask is, do you use hyperliquid?

And what we saw is more people think others are using hyper liquid than they're actually using hyper liquid.

Um, so what this tells us is great marketing done by their team, but in reality what we are kind of the perception they've created is not reality.

So our result is people are not using hyper liquid as much as um we, we think, and that surprised us and probably a lot of the users.

Or the watchers of hyperliquid, um, another one actually that surprised us happened, um, actually in July of last year when we asked about the Trump and Biden election and we actually got the best answer which is Trump is going to win.

At the time there were very few people that believe Trump was going to win and that answer surprised us and it came true.

Um, similarly, we also front ran the first time Bitcoin hit 100K.

Um, like before poly market, uh, and it's because we're able to create, um, more hidden beliefs and more emer emerging beliefs from the market, uh, in that sense, Cho actually functions as an oracle, and we actually have builders building on our oracle and using our signals to resolve their opinion markets right now.

And Casey, we're here at a Salon conference, so I do want to get your take on this intersection of 5 markets and Salana.

So viewers out there, they might be familiar with the tokenallana as well as the blockchain as well.

But at this intersection, tell us what's going on and what you envision with Chop.

Yeah, uh, so, so I, as I mentioned to you earlier, uh, off camera, so Sallana is my home.

I've been building on Solana since May of 21.

Uh, my co-founder, very similarly, he's been doing a lot of work in Solana for the past 2-3 years before we even came together.

Um, and one thing Solana is known for is meme coins, but also, uh, creating markets that are more accessible and digestible by and consumers by retail, um, and there are a lot of, uh.

Things that you can think about when it comes to creating vibes.

Uh, it can be meme coins, but it could also be emerging trends in fashion, in design, in art.

Um, and we're really excited about bringing those different kinds of vibes that aren't as financial, but making it more accessible to end users because when we do call it vibe markets for common understanding, but when you attach the name market on top of something, it can be alienating or maybe Be a little bit exclusive.

So that's why the front, uh, the front end of a quiz game is how we're choosing to take something that is very market-based, uh, that is a very novel way of market design, but then making it very accessible and user friendly to, uh, to normies hopefully in the next version of our product.

OK, Casey, well, thank you so much for joining me here at Salon and Accelerate, and thank you so much for bringing your special guests on the show as well.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.