Hildobby is a data wizard currently working at DragonFly, one of the earliest and most successful crypto venture capital funds. Additionally, hildobby is a prolific Dune wizard, having created dozens of incredibly useful dashboards covering a broad range of crypto topics, including his recently updated NFT dashboard for comparing topline metrics of popular collections.
- Collection (via Hildobby): Overpriced Gin
- Why hildobby left a master’s program for crypto
- How many trades/traders really account for most wash trading volume in NFTs?
- How racing to build airdrop dashboards helped hildobby gain traction
- What he sees as the coming trends in the NFT industry
Hildobby’s NFT Overview Dashboard
Rough Transcript:
[00:00:00] Rantum: All right. We are here with our second guest and I have made the mistake already of, uh, you know, talking to, to Hil Dbi for, uh, uh, about, for, for too long without recording. So we are back to record. I'm very excited to have Hil Dbi on Hil. DBI is a. Data Wizard. He currently works at Dragonfly, one of the earliest, most successful crypto venture capital funds.
[00:01:08] Uh, additionally Hilda, he's a prolific dune wizard. Uh, he's created dozens of incredibly useful dashboards, maybe more. Um, they've been a big help to me. I use his queries often to, to help my work. He's influenced a lot of what I've done and I'm super excited to have Hilda on. ,
[00:01:26] Hildobby: thank you for having me. Um, I'm, uh, very happy to be talking to a fellow, uh, prolific dune wizard.
[00:01:33] Uh, we've been shoulder, shoulder on the, on the June, uh, leaderboard lately. Uh, I mean, for the past, quite a, quite a while now. Uh, so yeah, it's, it's, it's really cool to, to be hoing onto your podcast.
[00:01:45] Rantum: Awesome. Well, tell me a little bit how you got interested in crypto. What, what led you to where you are now?
[00:01:52] Hildobby: Um, so I started, uh, after, after my bachelor in end of 2018, I, um, was looking for an internship and I found, uh, an internship at a company called Caico, which is a, a cryptocurrency data provider for, uh, off chain data. So, uh, sorry, central exchange data. Um, and that's where I really. Uh, more about what this blockchain space is and took an interest for it.
[00:02:16] Um, at the end, uh, I, uh, thought I wanted to, I, I, I realized I wanted to do a master's before, uh, moving onto, uh, the, um, the work life. So I went to Amsterdam where I did, uh, uh, masters in computational science, which is, uh, uh, modeling, uh, yeah, data science modeling, basical. Which was super interesting. I really loved it.
[00:02:42] And halfway through my masters, I discovered June, and I'm, I'm a very curious person, so I like to learn things by doing. And so I started to play around with the blockchain data by just, just as a side hobby inside project to understand it better. Um, at the time it, June wasn't as big as, it wasn't even remotely as big as it is now.
[00:03:06] So it was a much smaller, much more niche kind of, Space. Um, and I was also frustrated by the fact that if you looked on Twitter, all the charts you could see were just technical analysis charts, uh, going Exactly. I thought, I thought surely with this, with this whole blockchain thing being open to the public and everything being, uh, just easy to, to.
[00:03:32] uh, there should be more data on this available free for free. Uh, you know, there's, there are some data platforms. I think, uh, at the time, uh, the biggest work platform were probably like glass node and, and stuff like this. Mm-hmm. where, um, and then there's um, coin geco, coin market cap and stuff like this.
[00:03:49] But there wasn't really deeper analytics, uh, uh, much more deeper than this. And that's also because at the time the space wasn't necessarily as mature and there wasn't all this. , you know, the defi boom had not happened yet. Um, wait, no. The defi boom just had, just happened. Sorry. Uh, and, but, but people had not really leveraged the on chain data capabilities yet.
[00:04:12] Uh, or at least they had probably for themselves, but not necessarily in a public manner. Uh, so yeah, I, I, I just looked around the ground and then I started to have people take an interest for my work. So I leveraged this and, um, started to share my work public. And also started to do some freelancing in, uh, that was a year ago, just about a year ago, November, a year ago.
[00:04:37] Um, and yeah, I started to the market . Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I started to take some, some, uh, some, uh, freelance jobs, uh, that was super interesting. I got to dig into defi, I got to dig into NFTs, uh, infrastructure staking everything so. Uh, really cool. Uh, and then I slowly grew my, my profile slowly grew and I, I, you know, I got more ambitious over the time.
[00:05:03] I got more things. Um, and then, uh, I realized, okay, if I wanna do something for the next six months, this is probably gonna be more valuable actually, than my, than finishing my masters. So, I, uh, went on to, uh, drop off my master's to pursue this full-time, uh, first as a freelancer, and then I always had this in mind.
[00:05:25] Um, my goal eventually was to, once the, the perfect opportunity comes around, uh, jump on it and, and join a really cool company. And Dragonfly was that company. So I started there in early July and, uh, I've been there main data guy ever since. So, uh, really grateful. Also really cool to work with, uh, a team of giga brains.
[00:05:49] Uh, yeah, just, it's so
[00:05:53] Rantum: impressive. Uh, yeah. You got some impressive, very impressive people, uh, including yourself now as well, but, um, it's, I'm impressed by how much you continue to contribute to the dune space and, you know, what do you, what, what, what do you like about working on Dune as that platform? You talked a little bit about how it's open and, and anybody can work on it.
[00:06:14] Um, is that what excites you about working on
[00:06:17] Hildobby: it? . I think that the two most exciting aspects for me are the collaborative aspect where you can, anyone can build on top of each other's work and share, and then, you know, whatever you contribute is a progression because other people can use that work, leverage.
[00:06:33] It changes slightly to their advantage and what they want to query. Uh, and the other thing is that, um, what did I wanna get at? Sorry. Um, uh, so the. Oh yeah, sorry. And the live data aspects, which is really, really cool. You know, uh, the, your piece of work that you did, uh, unlike most traditional data piece of work that are more of a timestamp mm-hmm.
[00:06:59] uh, in time and, and, and reflect, uh, the, the, the data space at a certain time. This is more live and, and, uh, I think that's super.
[00:07:09] Rantum: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's one of the, the best things about crypto in general is that this is live data, and it feels like for so much time we maybe weren't leveraging all of the, the data that was available.
[00:07:20] It was a lot of looking at prices. Um, what has, what have been some of your favorite dashboards to work on in terms of, I mean, what is, what, what interests you when you, when you dig into these?
[00:07:34] Hildobby: So I am, I'm, I'm very curious, uh, I, I've always been, and I don't want to, I'm not necessarily focused on a specific sector.
[00:07:43] Mm-hmm. , NFT has been the biggest sector I, I've focused on because there's simply, uh, been so much going on in n ft since the past year or so, and the spaces have also much, so there is a lot to look into. Uh, but I have done some defi stuff. I've done some, uh, staking. , I've done actually a lot of airdrop dashboards, those, uh mm-hmm.
[00:08:04] those were, uh, kind of how, um, I made a name for myself in the space really. So, uh, that was also exciting because for those, I had to, you know, it was more of, um, of a race to do it as soon as possible, because whenever it drops, you want to have the data asap, and that was kind of a fun challenge. I, I, so that's why I did, I think I did eight in total.
[00:08:27] Uh, I did stuff like e n s. a I did, uh, I dunno a lot more, but, um, those were, were super interesting. Uh, then I like, so surfacing stats when they're not available I think is great. Uh, that is, that comes in all kinds of sectors. And then also more recently, I'm starting to dive more into the research, uh, more research aspects.
[00:08:50] Just like I recently did a research piece on, on horse trading and train of. Trying to quantify that amount and, and also filter it out. Um, and that was also interesting. So I'm starting to lean more into this and I have already some ideas for upcoming research pieces that I'll be publishing in the future.
[00:09:11] Rantum: I saw some of your, your wash trading, uh, analysis, and it seems like you've found that there was relative small number of traders that. accounting for a large amount of the, the wash trading out there, or even just a large amount of volume overall on some platforms. Right. Could you tell us a little bit about, about what you did find in this
[00:09:29] Hildobby: research?
[00:09:30] Yeah. So wash trading in itself looks scary because all you assume Okay. This whole, um, okay, so in terms of volume, myself, is that around 45% of volume, uh, of traded volume on Ethereum has been, um, linked to, was trading. and it, it, it looks scary in itself. But the, the truth is that it actually is that only 1.5% of users are actually behind this volume.
[00:09:57] And they are just trading in very large amounts in order to get the highest reward for themselves on platforms such as looks rare and next to Y two, where there's a token incentive, uh, whenever you trade. So they are gaming those rewards, uh, and. I,
[00:10:15] Rantum: and they're not doing it by the number of trades, but high volume trades,
[00:10:18] Hildobby: right?
[00:10:19] Yeah, exactly. And, and, um, I had actually earlier in September, I was, uh, calling the crossfire or something where, um, hmm. A pro, a prolific journal, uh, was publishing, um, an article based on my, one of my old dashboards, which was my biggest still at the time, and, and still is, which is my NFT dashboard, uh, global macro dashboard.
[00:10:39] And they were saying, okay, the NFT space is down 97. , um, from, uh, it's January high, but the, the, the truth is that there's January high. Uh, a lot of it is, uh, wasting. So if you filter this out, it actually, uh, brings out a much better light to the space. And I think is also, yeah, just filtering out the noises is important.
[00:11:02] And this work must be done in the, to, to actually properly analyze the stats. You know, the, the raw data is, is too noisy. I think, uh, I wanna take out the good parts and leave out the rest, uh, and start from this baseline. And now, now that I have filtered this, there's so much to look into from this now filtered data.
[00:11:22] Rantum: Right? Right. So, as an NFT podcast, I've gotta ask you about, like, some of your favorite collections. We see your, your, you know, we've got, I know your pfp well. Can you tell me about that? What else do you love in the NFT space?
[00:11:35] Hildobby: Yeah. My, my, uh, profile picture is, is just. Project called Crypto, um, crypto mos. Uh, it was around since I think it Minton in October, 2021.
[00:11:46] Um, and I kinda like the, it just looks goofy and a little different. Uh, it has a very distinct look, which at the time definitely I appreciate it. Um, I also, uh, actually my profile picture is not just a crypto noises. I also have, uh, noun glasses on it, uh, because I just, that's right. Noun nouns is a, is a really cool project as well.
[00:12:08] I don't know. I, I think it is one of the most long-term sustainable, at least so far, it's proven itself as the one, one of the most long-term sustainable project because they have constant revenue and their treasury is something people, uh, are interested in. So they get proposals to, to build on top of the project.
[00:12:27] And that's, I think it's a, it's a really cool experiment at the very least. Um, and I do like this. , these innovative projects that try something new and, and are daring mm-hmm. , uh, to try, you know, um, uh, back a year ago, uh, it used to be that 99% of projects were, uh, the same thing of, uh, 10 K PFPs. And, and I, I really got tired of that pretty quickly, so I was looking for something.
[00:12:55] Think the market did . Yeah, exactly. So, um, so I, I appreciate those who dare to innovate and try out new. , um, I like lately, uh, so overpriced jpeg, for example, did a drop where you can mint, um, an over overpriced gin, uh, um, n ft, which
[00:13:17] Rantum: they're telling you it's overpriced. ,
[00:13:19] Hildobby: yeah. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. It's the name of the, it's the name of the project, uh, it's called No
[00:13:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, uh, but, um, uh, and I, I like, can, you can redeem it for, uh, a Ville Jim of Gin while uh, supporting the show. , it's a win-win for both the podcast and also for, uh, those who choose to mint. Um, so I like, I like this. Uh, I,
[00:13:43] Rantum: I think I heard of this one. Um, it has the artist, Amber Ator, who we've talked about on the podcast as well.
[00:13:48] So we'll link that. Check that out. , go ahead. Yeah,
[00:13:51] Hildobby: the, the art is great. Uh, I think the, the bottle also stands out for its art. Uh, so I like. I must put into this. It's not necessarily, you know, it's not, it's not, um, uh, a price that is completely, uh, crazy or, or something. And I think the value is, is, um, you know, it, it, it is a good price for what you get, I believe.
[00:14:15] Uh,
[00:14:15] Rantum: so it's not a great podcast they've done, and they've had us do some really good interviews and they've done some great work over there. So, I mean, it's a, it's a. cool project. I like the idea of connecting a an N F T to a physical object. We've talked a little bit about that in the past. So this is, this is cool to see.
[00:14:32] I think I'll have to mention this to my co-host and he can add it to his growing N f T bar .
[00:14:39] Hildobby: Would this be actually something you would be, um, how, how do you foresee the future of this podcast and would this be something you, you would see as, As, uh, would you envision some releasing some NFTs or, yeah, I, I curious
[00:14:52] Rantum: about yours?
[00:14:53] No, that's a good question. We've never, we've never gotten into that and it's something that it, it's sort of silly that we haven't done ourselves, but, you know, it's been a bit of, we of a time issue. You know, we, we do it, we can to get the, uh, the podcast done, but, you know, maybe we can start putting some more, more work into it and, uh, you know, get an n f T of our own out there.
[00:15:13] Hildobby: Yeah, no, I, I, I, I appreciate because I think appreciate it because I. , the bulk of, of what is important, of course, is the podcast. Um, the releasing n f t on the is more of a side project than, and it shouldn't, um, you know, it shouldn't, uh, obstruct you from, uh, actually doing the podcast, you know? Uh, otherwise it's, it's not a productive thing.
[00:15:34] Um, so yeah, I think, uh, that's a very reasonable take.
[00:15:39] Rantum: Awesome. I really appreciate you coming on and talking about crypto, about NFTs, uh, anything. You know, we, well, we, I know that you just updated your, your NFT dashboards. We're gonna link that as well. Can you tell us actually a little bit about that NFT dashboard you have That is, as you said, your most popular one.
[00:15:56] Uh, can you just tell us Yeah. A bit about it?
[00:15:58] Hildobby: So, um, actually this is, this is part of a, of a bigger project I have in mind. Um, I, uh, so I currently updated this n ft dashboard, which is, uh, the macro, uh, N F t, uh, Ethereum NFT Landscape. Uh, and it show, it, it shows you, uh, the top collections based on all-time trading, but also trading volume traders, uh, aggregators.
[00:16:21] Um, it also leverages my recently released wash trading filtered method, uh, which I. . Um, it's, it's hard to look at the space with the, the, like I said before, with the noise. So I, I, now that I've built this foundation without was trading, I can build a lot of things and this is the first dashboard, but I actually wanna dive more into, uh, this, this, uh, N S T stuff.
[00:16:44] So I have more dashboards. Uh, even this week I'll be releasing more stuff, uh, on, you know, this N F T is starting to be quite a big space. So there's a, um, for example, uh, royalties is something. It's been debated a lot, but it says, found little, there's little data to be found on it, and I find that frustrating.
[00:17:04] So I want to help there and, and surface that data and make it accessible to all,
[00:17:08] Rantum: um, sales. Right. The headlines without much data behind, behind the variety debate.
[00:17:14] Hildobby: Exactly. And I find that, yeah, I find that very frustrating. So I, I want to contribute where I can and surface those stats in a, I think they should be freely available, just like the blockchain is freely accessible.
[00:17:25] Um, And that we should all be playing with the same amount of information. So yeah, that's, that's where I wanna contribute.
[00:17:33] Rantum: Awesome. Cool. Well, again, thank you so much for, for coming on. Uh, where can people find you? We will link it in the show notes, but if you wanna mention it here, it'd be great. .
[00:17:42] Hildobby: Thank you very much.
[00:17:43] Um, so my moist, I post mostly on, on June, my June profile and then Twitter. I will post all updates, new charts, everything. I'll also do some ad hoc analysis, so if you wanna follow me there, that's why I'll do most of my work.
[00:17:57] Rantum: Awesome. Cool. Well thank you so much.
[00:18:00] Hildobby: Thank you for having me.