The Random Show — Blockchain/Crypto Investing, NFT Experiments, Dogecoin, Zen Buddhism, and More

In this freewheeling Random Show, Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose cover a lot of ground after a rough start (Kevin's Ozempic-induced nausea and Tim's house losing power to a lightning strike). They dive deep into blockchain and crypto investing, NFTs and generative art (Art Blocks, CryptoPunks), Dogecoin and meme coins, and the case for DeFi and crypto interest accounts. The conversation also explores health and fitness topics including mobility training, rucking, Pilates, sleep optimization via fish oil and sun exposure, and disaster preparedness. The episode closes with an extended, thoughtful discussion of Kevin's year-long Sanbo Zen meditation practice, koans, checking questions, and the parallels between Zen and psychedelics.

• Kevin discusses using Ozempic for glucose disposal, jumping straight to a 0.5 dose and waking at 4am violently nauseous, which forced rescheduling the recording.
  00:02:04
• Kevin's Twitter profile art is a 'squiggle,' the very first project launched on Art Blocks, explaining generative art where the buyer's mint timestamp seeds a unique algorithmic output.
  00:43:38
• An alien CryptoPunk sold at Sotheby's for $13 million; auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's now treat NFTs as real art (and charge ~20% commission).
  00:56:37
• Kevin says True Ventures has deployed roughly $50 million this year into crypto-related deals, a significant chunk of the fund.
  01:01:49
• Kevin reveals he personally held millions of Dogecoin years ago when it was a worthless Reddit tipping joke, and explains it lacks an active developer community.
  01:09:32
• Kevin had to rip out his entire sauna and buy a new one after oiling the wood caused it to off-gas toxic smoke for months.
  01:58:43
• Kevin admits he committed to serious hour-a-day Zen meditation because he was deeply depressed during the pandemic with a new second child and mounting stress.
  02:18:29
• Tim names selling Amazon stock in the 2008 subprime crash (and Shopify earlier) as his biggest investing regrets — he had rules for buying but not for holding or selling.
  01:04:22

• Tim last wore a continuous glucose monitor around 2008 with a first-gen Dexcom that required a barbecue-pitchfork-style two-pronged manual needle insertion.
  00:05:42
• Beeple's NFT collage sold for $69 million after he created art every day for around 5,000 days straight.
  00:37:55
• Chia (founded by BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen) uses hard-drive 'farming' and roughly one-thousandth the energy of Bitcoin mining; demand caused hard-drive shortages at retailers like Best Buy.
  01:18:54
• Tim notes blockchains like Solana can process around 50,000 transactions per second.
  01:21:59
• Kevin cites Wells Fargo's 2021 footprint — 7,200 branches, 13,000 ATMs, 268,000 employees — and $72.34 billion in 2020 revenue, as the overhead DeFi removes.
  01:23:33
• Kevin describes Alchemix self-repaying loans: deposit collateral, get half back immediately, and yield pays off the loan automatically in a little over two years.
  01:28:48
• Stanford neurobiologist Andrew Huberman advised Tim to take at least 1 gram of EPA fish oil daily; Tim uses Nordic Naturals ProOmega and Thorne Super EPA.
  01:45:54
• Tim's gout-related toe stiffness dropped roughly 90% within a week or two of increasing fish oil intake; he notes fructose, not just animal protein, is an understated gout culprit.
  01:53:34
• Kevin practices Sanbo Zen (a lay Zen lineage derived from Soto and Rinzai), doing 25 minutes sitting, 5 minutes walking, then 25 minutes more — 55 minutes daily for a year.
  02:04:54
• The famous koan 'Mu' comes from Zen master Joshu, who answered 'Mu' when a monk asked whether a dog has Buddha nature; lineages use 20 to 100 checking questions.
  02:11:16

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