Latest / Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3 / Episode 268 - From World Records to a Billion Trees: How Web3 & AI can Scale a Global Movement of Regenerators, with Jimi Cohen of Treegens

Transcript

Episode 268 - From World Records to a Billion Trees: How Web3 & AI can Scale a Global Movement of Regenerators, with Jimi Cohen of Treegens · Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today you'll discover how a childhood passion for trees and the environment grew into a world record-breaking mission to regenerate the planet.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: The story behind Jimmy's Guinness World Records, and what planting trees for 24 hours straight teaches you about perseverance and resilience.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: How TreeGens is using blockchain, crypto tokens, and AI tree counting to build a global community of regenerators, and the audacious plan for the first ever Billion Tree Day, and how technology makes that kind of global coordination possible.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to CryptoAltrists, where we explore the intersections of Web3 and Social Good to the stories of impact-driven builders and offer actionable insights to empower your journey into the world of blockchain for good.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Drew Simon.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before we dive in, please remember that this is not financial or legal advice, and always do your own research on any of the projects or investment opportunities that we discuss.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the CryptoAltress Podcast.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, I've got a quick and exciting bit of news to share.
• 0:53
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• 1:20
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• 1:25
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• 1:31
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• 1:38
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• 1:41
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• 1:49
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• 1:56
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• 1:59
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• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, there's no better episode to share this news on because today is all about planting seeds, quite literally.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thrilled to welcome back Jimmy Cohen, the founder of Tree Gens and a world record tree planter.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy was with us all the way back in episode 158, and so much has happened since.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But Jimmy's story doesn't start with world records or even with Web3.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with a love of trees.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Environmentalism runs in his family, it's in his blood, and the passion showed up early in his life.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Back in his university days, he went door to door in his dorm, raising money for environmental causes one conversation at a time.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But he began to envision something bigger.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: That vision led him to set a Guinness World record for the most mangroves planted by a single person in 24 hours, and then another record.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's training to break a third.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if you know Jimmy, you know the records weren't ever the point.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're more of a spark.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Proof that when one person shows what's possible, it can inspire a whole movement to follow.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's what he calls the four-minute mile effect, where once something happens once, it keeps on happening.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where Web3 and Tree Gens come in, because Jimmy's real goal isn't a personal record.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's to bring people together all over the world and to scale this movement towards something almost unimaginable.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The first ever billion tree day.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to talk about how he plans to get there, the role of technology like blockchain and artificial intelligence to scale tree planting efforts and coordinate people around the world, and a look into how he plans for these grueling world record attempts, and the importance of resilience and perseverance along the way.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, in one quick thing, we are going to discuss tokens today, and while I think tokens can be a very powerful tool for community, we don't personally endorse any specific cryptocurrencies on this podcast, so make sure to do your research on any tokens or investment opportunities and make a decision that's right for you.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, you're going to love this conversation.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy's energy is truly contagious, so let's dive in.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the Crypto Ultras podcast.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is now episode 268, and you were on last at episode 158.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it has been a while, so thank you so much for being here.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, lucky 58, 100 later.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Congrats, man.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're on a roll.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh can't believe we're still going.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's been interesting for both of us.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Crypto Ultras and Tree Gens has really uh grown and kind of uh grown with the times as well.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh it's an interesting time to be building in the tech for good space, and it's been great seeing everything you've shipped and all the records you're beating and everything.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So so excited to have you back.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe for folks that aren't as familiar, who are you and what are you building with Tree Gens?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh quick overview and then we'll jump into the uh nitty-gritty of it all.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, I'm Jimmy Cohen.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've uh broken two Guinness World records so far.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm about to break a third and ultimately uh get uh get this world ensuring that one billion trees happen in a single day.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh that's my like big, hairy, audacious goal, which might happen as soon as March 21st, International Day of Forest, next year.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, what I'm building with tree gans is uh basically a transparent and direct way to fund tree planters.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're tokenizing and gamifying tree planting, and uh ultimately we want to create a world where anyone can plant trees and earn a living.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not okay with the fact that it's it's uh it's far easier to destroy nature and get paid than it is to restore nature and get paid.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: We uh we're we're changing that one token at a time.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's a it's a great point, right?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's so easy to not necessarily so it's it's um much more incentivized to uh create like extractive businesses and and things like that that draw out resources instead of putting them back or regenerating them.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really refreshing to kind of see you flip that script and we'll talk about how you're doing that and the different incentives you're working in and everything.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I want to dig into these Guinness World Records.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you've broken two, which is congratulations, that's amazing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh looking to break a third, you said in March.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um so what does that look like?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Take us behind the scenes.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do you prepare for this?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: What's the buildup looking like till March?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so March is the billion tree goal.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually attempting a Guinness World record, rather, I'm attempting a Guinness World record.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, there's a team that supports it, but I'm I'm personally aiming to plant 50,000 trees in 24 hours, uh, which will be the most that any humans has planted.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the first one that I broke was most mangroves planted by an individual in 24 hours.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I personally planted 30,469 mangrove trees.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: That was not a first try kind of thing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: It actually took me three separate attempts until that became an official thing.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine like just the Kenyan sun beating down.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like a tomato so sunburnt and the mosquitoes came out, you know, feasting.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you can eat buffet.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I actually busted my toe the day before.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was like gushing blood.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I slept three hours the night before, but I pushed through all of that because I knew that when I break this record, it will lead to the next one.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's never been a vanity thing, oh look at me, look how many trees I can find.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's about what is humanity actually capable of?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I I believe that this next billion tree goal is going to be so monumental because it's like it's something called what I'm calling, I'm calling the four-minute mile effect.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so for decades and decades and decades, people tried to to uh to run for a full mile in under four minutes, and and most people didn't think it was possible.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: It was called like the four-minute barrier.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't, and it was like a wall that was in front of them, and and and if you don't believe it's possible, you're not very likely to make it happen.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: But uh the same year that Roger Bannister finally did it in 1954, another uh Australian guy also broke it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now tens of thousands of people uh have actually gone out there and and and uh and thousands have broken the record.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so um it's once something happens once, it keeps on happening.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when we get the first billion trees uh done in a day, it's going to keep on happening.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, dude, what what goes into it?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like personally, I'm I'm training every single day.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is a beautiful thing, um, because my my record has has actually been broken.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the person whose record I went out and and broke went and broke mine.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so now I get to get back in the best shape of my life, dude.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've never been yeah, I've never been that inspired to like become an athlete, you know, and like a traditional sports team, you know, but uh, but this to me is so motivating, so in like I just jump out of bed, I'm getting after, I'm doing these like lunges and like this, this, this like planting strategy and like jumping squats and core exercises, and uh, and it's uh it it feels really good to actually get in shape.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh yeah, that's that's what goes into the training of it.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's also obviously the preparation.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I need a team, people keeping tally and everything like that.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the personal one.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the second Guinness of World record I broke uh was most number of people simultaneously planting mangrove trees.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was a collaboration, uh, to be clear.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was not just obviously uh tree gents, there was uh mostly the the Kenyan Forest Association, oh sorry, Kenyan Scouts Association, KSA, and a wonderful woman called Trufena.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Trufena um she hugged a tree for 72 straight hours, and that's a that's another Guinness Well record.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you might be thinking, like, oh, what's the impact of hugging a tree?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now she's in charge of the the the the Kenya's goal of getting to 15 billion trees by 2032.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so she's really leading that now.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, uh basically tree initiated her to become a tree gen as well, and uh, and we're we're going after.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, my personal record, which is coming up on International Day of Climate Action, October 24th, that's when I'm going for 50,000 mangroves, is actually gonna be the launch of uh of the countrywide tree planting day happening on March 21st across Kenya.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um, we're gonna get a lot of media around that and it's gonna launch that campaign.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Trufena is uh really a pioneer of of making that happen.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's four million people in the Kenyan Scouts Association, that's just one of the many groups that are coming together to make history.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's uh love it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you always uh for those that are listening who might not be familiar, one of the things that Jimmy and Tree Gens does is they post words all the time.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think maybe daily or several a week where it says like the grocabulary.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: The grocabulary, if you will, where you put tree into the word, so history.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it just for those that didn't pick up on that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I saw I remember seeing the the social post uh about Trifenya, sorry if I'm not saying that right, uh, from Kenya and uh the 72 hours.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's so fun.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: People might look at that and be like, oh yeah, 72 hours talking to a tree, what's the big deal?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it brings so much attention to it, it creates buzz, it brings money into it, it brings people into it, so that's exciting.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And something you said there around that kind of stuck with me is around like you never saw yourself as like an athlete.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people, when they think of tree planting, that's not the first thing they think of, but it's a pretty grueling process to plant 50,000 trees in 24 hours.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so you mentioned that you work out to prepare and like your exercise, like talk to me about like the preparation that goes into like not only like the physical but the mental to get ready for something like that.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, that's just as important.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, probably more important is the mental, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh uh like again, like we didn't have an evolution where humans all of a sudden like now can run a mile in four minutes.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: They believe that they could do it, you know.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so if if if if if no one's ever planted 50,000 trees before, which they haven't, uh visualization is pretty key.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there's something called the Tony Robbins priming ritual.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if you like type Tony Robbins priming or gratitude, it has a really great visualization built into it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a big believer in that.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and also uh, you know, having a strong why.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Nietzsche said with a strong enough why, you can endure anyhow.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: If I was just doing this for the accolades or to pat myself on the back, like I would have given up on an attempt one or two, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't have kept going, let alone like going for the 24 straight hours, you know, like to push through the mosquito bites and the sunburns and the chafing and the, you know, the busted toe and the sleeve deprivation, like all these things uh on the third attempt and still come out on top uh was was really a mental game.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm I'm I I listened to David Goggins, I listened to Les Brown, I listened to Tony Robinson, and this this kind of like uh mindset I think can can really do it.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but yeah, man, like there are lives on the line here, you know?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: What when I when I was first uh throwing charity parties to raise money for clean water, I did this for seven years in Canada.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I had a sticky note on my on my working desk that said lives are on the line.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what allowed me to push through a lot of stuff.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I actually fractured my like rib when I was doing like a I had like a snowboard accident, like threw a snowball on my brother when else he got me, had to get him back, right?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: I clipped it, like fractured my rib.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: So every time I would like lead go up, this was like super painful.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when I would like uh bend over, it was super painful.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I had to like roll out of bed.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but despite that, I was starting to throw these charity parties, and uh I I I put up hundreds of posters and I put thousands of flyers underneath uh people's dorm rooms.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: This was in university at UBC, and uh and it was like it's because lives are on the line, you know, like oh, you're going through a little bit of pain, buddy.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, peep lives are on the freaking line, you know, and so that became super clear, and and the same is the case here, you know.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it's you know, I obviously animals is a big thing.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um in 2019, seeing, you know, billions of animals getting burnt alive on the news just for months.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was like six months Australia was on fire.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh I planted my first shoe when I was four years old.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: My mother's like an environmental artist and activist.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: These are some of her paintings behind me.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so cool.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she was campaign.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she and I painted that one.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, that's cool when two words collide.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but um, so so so she was campaigning against illegal deforestation and and and koalas and different animals going extinct, and and so I was around that energy for a very young age.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then to just see these sentient beings, obviously like they they experience pain and pleasure, like you and I experience pain and and and it was heartbreaking.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was like one of the the lowest moments of my life, like just uh just watching that, and I felt like I'm a bit of an empath, like I feel the pain of of others a little bit, and and uh it really got to me.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was in like a really dark place, and then I just like started a live stream, and and uh back in the Facebook fundraiser days, some donations started coming in, and I felt this like rush, like this this this this sense of aliveness and passion, like oh, we're not hopeless in this, like we actually can do something about it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's that passion that I've just been leaning into ever since that's fueled me to do all this different stuff.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: But even beyond the the animals, like 8.1 million humans die every single year because of the air that they breathe.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know that, dude?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because of air, dude.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I was I was frankly pissed off when I heard that statistic.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, what?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: We allowed that to happen, like that's like sickening, you know?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but but it again, that's not a stat that you just have to, you know, accept lying down.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can actually change it, you know, and and and for me, like when I do this and it leads to that, um, like those two things are very much linked.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: So so that's what really allows me to get in that mental game of like, okay, yeah, it's painful.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, this is a little brutal right now, but but lives are on the freaking line, and you're gonna do whatever it takes to make it happen.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's always been you know the the place I've been coming from to to push through any kind of hardship challenges that come my way.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's inevitable.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: You want to do anything meaningful, yeah.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be smooth sailing, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be there's gonna be a bumpy ride, you know.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: But but uh but but none of that matters if uh if you're willing to to keep dusting yourself off and and giving it all you got, and uh eventually you'll get there.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So so yeah, man.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a really inspiring story.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so cool that you have that family connection too, you know, with your mother, beautiful artwork in the background by from both your mother and yourself.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, it's great how you're just like tapping into that bigger image, too, of this like, you know, it's not just about planting trees because they look good, it's part of a much, it's much more than that, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's such an important part of our ecosystem.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about mangroves as well and why the focus on those and how they're so important for drawing carbon out of the atmosphere.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but first I want to kind of bring tree gens into it and kind of center it all here.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've talked a lot about the Guinness World Records and and you know what you've been working towards there.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: How does tree gens tie into this?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and tell me more about kind of the ecosystem, the TGN token, how it rewards planters.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, talk to me about that side of things.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so so before I got into Web3, I was uh just doing standard non-profit tree planting stuff.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I was I was having our planters film the lands before they would plant it and then film it after they plant it, and then try to get the GPS into a Google Sheet.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: So they were like, they were putting their finger on Google Maps to try to like get a pin and then copy the GPS over to a spreadsheet and then upload like a Google Drive link.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like even people who are very familiar with Google Drive.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they send you the link and you gotta request, you know, access, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can imagine people who like recently got access to a smartphone trying to figure this whole thing out.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: We had challenges, like it was tough to to make that happen, you know, but it was necessary because uh, you know, there's a study by University of Waterloo that the same year that um that that charities get the seal of transparency, uh, their donation skyrocket about 50% after that.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the next year.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so like that's what that says is that there's a lot of money that's just like waiting, would love to flow towards positive impact if they actually trusted where it was going.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and transparency is a thing, but but to do this is is very challenging.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so right now, uh anyone can go to their phone.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I encourage anyone listening to try this out treegens.app on their web browser on their phone.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't need to download anything super easy.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tree rwgsns.app.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can even sign in with Google or email, it'll create a crypto wallet for you.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what what this does is you click the tree button and you can film within the app.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So this is actually important, you know, in 2026 when you can generate anything with AI or something you find online.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just you can't just upload, right?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: You have to film within the application, even if you don't have access to the internet, it will like save and upload when you do.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: That was a cool feature we built because it's very remote regions.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you film before and after, AI counts the trees, and then we have Dow members who are verifying.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if you stake TGN, you can become a verifier.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we you know we accept the verifiers in, and then they just take some boxes, make sure that they're planted correctly, and then and then and then 95% of our tree token.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: In the case of mangrove trees, it's a it's a fungible token where 95% goes directly to the planters and 5% goes to the verifiers.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Mgro is now minting.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to share.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we haven't launched the liquidity pool for it yet, because uh, you know, this is not like you know, most tokens you you have to you you generate the initial liquidity of the of the market by doing like a pre-sale or by doing a launch pad.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, a lot of people are doing launch pad stuff, right?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: With the bonding curve and the migration, etc.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do that because the only way to create this token is by planting trees.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot just like buy it before someone's planted the tree, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so, so, so we have the so what I'm doing is I'm literally just buying OTC.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, guys, sell me your Mgrow, right?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: So people are selling me their Mgrow.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to get a decent enough amount so I can launch the pool.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then how do we make sure, because what we expect the planters to sell the token?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the point, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to create green jobs, I want people to put food on the table and send their kids to school because they planted trees, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do we make the the liquidity substantial and ideally grow over time and make this uh this an asset that can appreciate over time?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a variety of different strategies for that, but what I'm actually about to launch in like uh three and a half hours is something called B trees.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so B Trees is a fair launch.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: So TGM was a was a launch pad type uh sorry, TGM was a uh a pre-sale type token.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: With this, all the tokens are out there, so it's uh it's a fair launch.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing a dev buy and then locking the dev wallet.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh all the fees fund trees.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's the simple thing with it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: All of our fees fund the trees.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we're launching it on Robin Hood.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we expect there to be quite a bit of volume, and that will generate the fees which will fund the trees, and uh, and and all of that money that we get from that will do will be going into this Mgrow liquidity pool.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's a way for us to actually bootstrap it and kickstart it and have that liquidity coming in and hopefully more and more and more.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a a great way to fuel this tree economy.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but beyond that, uh, we uh you know we have partnerships with different groups like the Yucky Ducks, like they plant 10 trees for every follower they get, for example, people who are donating for each app download.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we just launched tree merch.org.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So anyone right now, you can go to TRWMERCH.org.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh this is a marketplace, so anyone can start selling merch.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've we've brought together all the most uh all the sustainable products of print on demand stuff.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: So there's like 79 different products.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking t-shirts that are uh recycled materials, organic caught in, hemp, and um and and and and tote bags and and and water bottles and hoodies and and all this stuff, right?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's only sustainably made merch.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh anyone who even if you don't have designs, you can actually generate designs right there on the mer on the website.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and the minimum, and so you keep all the profit if you want to sell stuff on there, man.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: You could you should totally launch them for the podcast.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but but all we ask is one dollar minimum goes towards funding trees.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's 10 trees.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: With us, we're actually able to plant trees for only 10 cents.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and and the sellers can put a little more if they want, and then the buyers can also put a little more if they want.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And whatever the final number is, it's printed on the sleeve.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: So every shirt and item is actually kind of like a one-of-one.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can choose a tree number that could be totally unique that you want to fund, and uh, and and and you can rep that, and and that's a conversation starter.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so so that's another thing where um, you know, we're we're funding trees and adding to the liquidity of uh of uh of MGRO.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but but but the the payouts, the profits of the people who want to sell on the marketplace, they can choose fiat, they can choose USDC crypto payouts.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the default is actually they're gonna be getting B trees tokens.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna unwrap it.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another like buy pressure on our B trees token.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh, but but all the tree funds is going directly towards Mgrow.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the tree economy.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're setting up so that, yeah, ultimately.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: We want to uh to create a world where anyone can plant trees and earn a living.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So so far I've covered Mgrove, which is just mangroves.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if uh if you if you want to plant a different type of tree, what you get for that is a fungible, a um a non-fungible token, rather.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this non-fungible token is the before and after video AI tree counting, and um, and that can be purchased with our token as well.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's creating more volume and buy pressure on the token.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but 95% of that goes directly to the planter and 5% to our verifier, just like mgrow, but it's uh it's with a uh a video NFT.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: So so either way, you have video NFTs of impact on chain, um, which could either be purchased with mgrow to make the impact claim uh or with uh the B trees token for the various types of trees.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And our and our AI model is getting better and better and getting trained up for all this different uh types of trees so that ultimately we'll be able to verify very quickly and and deploy that to you know to really stress test it, billion trees in 24 hours.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the that's the big uh the big verification goal that we're we're gearing up for uh leading up to March 21st.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just looking at tree merch uh as well.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Some really cool stuff, uh great design.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll include that link in the show notes for anyone that's uh interested.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, looks looks awesome.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool how you're building out a whole economy around this and you know, starting with mangroves, but growing really to bring other trees into it.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because uh I'm in Canada, I don't know if there's many mangroves, so it's great that you're looking at how do we then grow this out, you know, make it a big movement.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll be right back after this brief announcement.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's an interesting statistic.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: More than nine in ten nonprofits are already using AI, but almost none of them have a policy for it.
• 23:38
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• 23:41
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• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: That might mean writing a responsible AI policy for your team that they'll actually use, finding real time savings in your day-to-day work, setting up crypto donations, or using blockchain tools to build trust without putting your community's data at risk.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's no hyper jargon and will tell you honestly when a tool isn't worth your time, or the technology simply isn't a good fit.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Every engagement starts with a free conversation, so to learn more head to cryptoaltras.com slash consulting, or simply click the link in the show notes.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now back to the episode.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: A big part of this is you mentioned kind of transparency and trust and how that's key for you know charitable organizations, for example, to get recognized and to get trusted and is to have that transparency and that credibility and that um certification sometimes.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the big pieces of what you're doing is you mentioned that tree counting technology.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you recently had a breakthrough with something called spatial memory, uh, which is really cool, so that trees don't get counted twice.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so talk to me about this uh kind of the AI tree counting side of things and how it's grown and kind of what that looks like in the future, what the vision is for that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks, man.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, the the spatial technology.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: So so here here's another key problem that we experienced uh with AI tree counting is people will will film the trees from left to right, and then they might go, okay, let me go back left and then up, you know.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: But then if you go left, right, left, right, it's gonna count the same trees multiple times, right?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so so with spatial technology, it it can detect that exact area.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, when you go left again, it doesn't detect it again.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, like that was a pretty big breakthrough.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Big shout out to Yusuf.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you might know ETH Mobile from the Gitcoin days and Valentine.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he's in a he's a crack dev, he's our our our main kind of backend blockchain developer right now.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he actually brought on Yusuf to to crack the AI.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: We've gone through multiple developers with the AI side of things to fine-tune it and evolve it over time.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh, but this guy's just like on another level.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so he came up with that to to solve that problem.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and also what we have, if you go to uh if you were to stake uh 2000 TGM become a verifier on the on the on the app, um if if our if the AI tree count is off, say like maybe it missed one or it like started to count, like we had a problem like the roots coming up of the mangrove.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Some species of mangrove have roots that come up and they also kind of look like propagules, some of those were getting counted.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so so you can actually know go okay, deselect boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, as a verifier, and then that actually feeds back into the base model, which then levels up and and becomes more fine-tuned.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so every single uh, you know, time someone's verifying, it's actually making it more and more accurate.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and we have different models.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you select the tree, and then that goes to it runs to a different model because like we had people, you know, accidentally have it as mangrove and then and then they were filming a coconut tree, and then it was counting like a branch or something.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh so you so now we have like the drop down, so you have to actually select the tree, it's a required thing, and then that allows you to uh make sure it's routed to the best model.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but yeah, we there's also some open source AI models that we've been able to kind of like you know learn from to train us for the various types of trees.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to make this the most accurate AI tree recognition technology for uh for for every single type of tree species, because uh even in 2026, man, like the big veras and gold standards they're they're MRV bodies, the measuring and reporting verification for the carbon market, has people counting one by one, like one, two, three, four.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, there there's human error, you know.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no one has a perfect count when you're trying to count a whole forest.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh, but I I believe that our AI tree counting is is already more accurate than a human, and it's just gonna get more and more and more so as uh as we as we really uh fine-tune it over time with with more and more labeling.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's so cool.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I could see this going to other use cases as well beyond trees.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great how like you know you're creating this technology that in the future could really inform uh other kind of impact initiatives that require that level of verification.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's awesome.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I want to go back to something you said a bit earlier on.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned how our economy currently values the digit degeneration of nature more than its regeneration.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so how do you see this kind of changing that in the future?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's your vision for how uh you know you're incentivizing tree planting can then kind of shift that game and make it so it's you know the other way around so that it's rewarding to and and profitable and you can make a living out of like talk to me about the vision for how you get there.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Great question, man.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: So so the carbon credit market last year was$880 plus billion dollars with a B.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you'd think this year, with like the Trump administration, everything, it would be down substantially.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, I saw a recent study, we're on track for it to get to$1.2 trillion this year.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I thought by 2028, but this year we're on track to do that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is actually rapidly growing, it's more revenue than AI in 2026.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's talking about how big AI, obviously, that's gonna get to ASI and that's a whole other thing.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: But like right now, the carbon market is rapidly growing and bigger than AI, and um, in terms of revenue because it's coming in.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but how much of that do you think actually makes it to the people on the ground?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not a lot, like uh it's yeah, crumbs, yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Bread crumbs, and and and that's the beauty of decentralized technologies is that anyone who can get access to a smartphone, even if you don't have one, maybe your buddy has access to a smartphone, it could be a very basic smartphone.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: You go into this website, you film before and after, you're getting these tree tokens.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned these other kind of like buy burn pressures from B tree's token, from tree merch, from partnerships, etc.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but we it is my goal.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: One of I have a I'm kind of big on goals if you ever notice.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: One of my goals is to make tree gens the biggest carbon project developer in the world so that we can decentralize it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and we're not we're not tokenizing carbon credits, we're tokenizing tree planting rewards on the ground.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have a pretty key competitive advantage in this because when we go to launch our own carbon credit project development things, our costs are lower because people are getting funded directly to plant trees through our token economy.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so we can plant more trees, and then we sell the future value of carbon credits to something called the carbon forward.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of having to wait, so if you plant a mangrove, it takes 25 years to take the carbon out of the atmosphere atmosphere.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Happens according to a bell curves.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: First five years, not a lot of sequestration.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of, you know, we don't have 25 years, that's a long, long time.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we have to scale regeneration yesterday.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we do is we forecast that future value of the carbon, we can guarantee it with carbon insurance, and then um, and then we sell it, even though it's at a discount, it's about it's a multiplication.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: We we forecast about 9x more than what it costs to plant the trees in the first place, which means we can multiply the trees repeatedly, scale exponentially, and then we're doing the biggest tree planting days in history.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get to a billion trees, we're gonna do this in a bunch of countries, and uh, and that's how we're gonna get there.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, once we get there, right, um, we we aim to so so we take so we've already benefited from our token economy to to get there.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not even once we become the biggest, like along the way, this is subject to a Dow vote, right?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is we take those funds from the carbon credits and we do a buy back and burn on the tree token, right?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so what that does is it it improves the value of the the token economy and the and the and the the the reward system.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, so that is a big way how we can take funds from the carbon market and put it direct on the ground.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, like uh that that that Robin Hood effect, you know, there's some really wealthy people in this market, but what about the people on the ground earning like you know a few dollars a day?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like we wanna we wanna really put it directly there on the ground.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so so that's what we're doing with the tree economy, how we aim to get there.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but but yeah, there's um there's a bunch of different things of of how we can can really uh add value to this over time.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you go to app.treegens.org.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: We've been shipping, man.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: We've built so many different things.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: So app.treegens.org, you see a cool globe interface.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like Google Earth.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can go through, you can see our different tree planting projects.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can buy, you can fund trees with Apple Pay Google Pay.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like it's really easy.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can put your card, you can fund trees Apple Google Pay.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And what that does is it will take that fiat currency, it will on-ramp it into USDC, it will buy uh the MGRO if it's mangroves, and it will send that mgro to the to the planter and 95% to them, 5% to verifiers.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh that makes it easy for the normies to get involved, you know.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: I used to knock on doors in Canada to fundraise uh for like years, man.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: I got a bunch of those people actually still giving, you know, that's the beauty.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like once you once you become a monthly donor and you pass like six months, the average is like five to seven years.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's like a known fundraising statistic on door to door.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, so so we're gonna get a bunch of people contributing monthly as individuals to fund trees, as companies, you know.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's the beauty of like this Eco Champions podcast I just launched, is that I I'm interviewing like chief sustainability officer of like L'Oreal and like Salesforce sustainability directors and like Ernest and Young and like these big companies who are funding like a lot of tree planting stuff.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna be like, well, this is the most direct way you can fund trees, and uh 95% of the money goes directly to the planters.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, once there's this full light bulb moment and we get mass awareness through these, you know, get us world records and billion tree days and all the media has been talking about when people really realize that this actually exists.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think we're gonna see a huge flow of funding directly to the ground level to those planters, and that's gonna really make this tree economy just cook.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's so cool.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Creating a bit of a kind of flywheel uh super cycle, if you will.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, that's really cool.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I one thing I really appreciate about you and respect about you is that you're not afraid to go out there and like do the uh the dirty work, you know, knock on doors, those sorts of things.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you wear a lot of hats.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it takes.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're a founder, world record holder, uh, door knocker, spaces host, podcast host, movement builder.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do it all?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you keep going?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the strategies you use to stay energized, stay motivated, stay on mission so you can make this um vision happen?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Man, to to stay motivated.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I actually have it written on my my wrist here.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: It says priming.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can realize I was explaining before this Tony Robbins priming exercise.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've done a lot of things from like meditation to affirmation to visualization, like all these different things you can do, like to just kind of get in a good state, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh no matter how much you love what you do and how impassionate you are, there's gonna be stressful times, there's gonna be dirt thrown at you, there's gonna be just jay you gotta get through.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh this over everything else, that's why I literally put it on my wrist, uh, has been a game changer for me.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's the priming exercise by Tony Robbins.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So anyone literally after this part, just go to youtube.com, Tony Robbins Gratitude, and or Tony Robins Prime, the same thing will come up.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's a five-minute version, there's a 10-minute version, there's a 15-minute version, uh, there's a 20-plus minute if you're like walking around.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it involves moving and breathing.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: So emotion is created by motion.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so moving and breathing is is a is a big one.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're you're actually like reliving your three favorite moments in life.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people like stressed about the future or like their negative experiences in life, they uh they relive those, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: But like, how often do you relive your favorite experiences on this planet?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, not not enough, guys.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, like, if you really step back into those moments, your brain doesn't really know the difference.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like you're there again, you know?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I get to tap into that, get in a good state, and then only then, once I'm in that state of mind, I think about the three goals that I really want to accomplish that would just set my soul on fire.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: That I'm just gonna be so fulfilled and ecstatic and just like, yes, like when we get there, you know, like I'm in that, and I know it's possible because I'm in that state, you know.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not in like a negative Nancy, ah, I don't think I can do this because I'm I've I've done some epic stuff already.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I'm in this state of mind, and then I'm I'm actually stepping into those as if they're happening now, you know?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then that that jazzes me up, you know.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Then I'm like, yeah, like dude, I it's almost like I've lived it, you know.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I I don't need someone else to plant a billion trees in a day for me to know that it's possible because I've already lived it like hundreds of times, you know.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've stepped into it, you know?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I know it's possible, and therefore it is a must for me because lives are on the line.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: I feel the weight of that 8.1 million people that die every year on my shoulders.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: I feel the weight of the billions of animals that are gonna get wiped off this planet if we don't take massive action.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: I feel the weight of everyone that suffers from the illness of these, you know, pollutions, all this different stuff.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and it is really a must for me.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's like the Vikings when they used to go take over an island, they'd set their own ships on fire as like a signal to themselves there is no going back, like it's do or die, you have to do this.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's like that's kind of the vibe, but for something positive, right?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like obviously we're trying to do something positive here, not take over islands, but but but it's like it's like you you have to do this, you know?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so so yeah, man, we've we've gone through we've gone through setbacks.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh TGN um took a took a massive, massive hit lately.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh I I am actually seeing some silver linings on that.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and we didn't have that much liquidity when we started out, so we ended up pairing it with something called AZUSD, which is like a regenerative stable coin.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can only create that by uh by by borrowing against regenerative assets, and um and and so it it allowed us, we paired with them and we had much deeper liquidity, and that was great because people make want to make big buys.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: They like they basically uh you know, if there's deeper liquidity that you know you can do that.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um they had over 100k liquidity when we started that.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then their basically, I think their debt limit was a bit high.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh people borrowed a lot, they sold their AZ USD, their liquidity basically got wiped out, and so we were the only thing, TGN, that was paired with AZUSD.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and then and then Helios came and and and borrowed a bunch and took their liquidity that's supposed to provide it, and just and and it just dragged us down with them, you know.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't our holders, we some of those diamond-handed holders, but because we were paired with that, we just got dragged in the mud.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so so then I I took a little bit of liquidity out of that.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's about six to eight K.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm gonna be using that to buy this new B trees token, and then we're gonna be sending the B trees token out to those people.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I bit made a bit of a mistake with the first TGN uh because uh, you know, we had like big vesting schedules and allocations for all kinds of different things, and it was gonna vest over the course of six years, but like 90% of the supply was not in circulation.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and if you're a trader and you see that, you're like, oh, what's gonna happen when that happens, you know?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it like it just kind of turns people off.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: But with this fair launch that we're about to do in like a few hours, um, all the tokens will be out there, you know, it's gonna be 100% of tokens out there.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's no one getting allocations, everyone's buying, you know, um, and and I'm gonna be buying them and I'm gonna be sending some love to our TGN holders to do right by them.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because I freaking love the people who support, you know, this movement, you know, because tree dance has changed my life.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: I know for a fact it's changed other people's lives.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's literally gonna save lives and probably already has to some extent.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so if you like put your hard-earned money behind this movement and and and and and you're not doing super well, like that, I take that as like I I felt sick when I saw the chart that day.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh my god, like I felt horrible.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Not because I lost money, and of course, I'm the one who lost the most of my own money that I put into it, but but because of all these other people that I deeply, deeply care about.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so so so now, you know, we're we're relaunching this, we're gonna do right by them, spread some love to them from tokens that we bought, you know, it's not some allocation, it's like that we're buying, and we're gonna go to them.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I really think that this next shot we have, it's a blessing in disguise because now we get to do it better, you know.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now we get to do it in a fair launch way.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now we get to um, you know, really get that that that trajectory, that gromentum for it to lift off.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I wanna I wanna reach, you know, unicorn status with this and get to a billion valuation.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's very uh ambitious, but uh, but but you know, like that's that's one of my goals, you know, not for national advice.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a goal that I have because when that happens, you know, like refi like really became a thing.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, granted, like the first wave of like Klima and stuff like that, like wasn't really done in the best way.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it did, it did kind of put it on the map, you know, because it reached a billion valuation, um, it put it on the map.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's like, oh, this is a thing.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it became like a meta almost, right?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of fizzled a little bit.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to, I want it to come back.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I really, I really want refi to be like the thing.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want it to be the meta.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want the innovators and the change makers to be leveraging the best technology for good.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so it's I think our success is not just about us succeeding, it's about the whole space succeeding of regenerative finance and us being like a good example of it.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so, uh, and so so that's why I wasn't like, oh, we're down bad.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just launch, let me just try again and like sorry about that.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, we're gonna do this to uh also help those people, and uh, and we're also you know, creating a lot of utility around it.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And over time, you know, I believe there is no failure in life.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: So long as you don't give up, if you keep pushing, eventually you're gonna succeed and make it happen.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so and I don't give up, you know, that's not in my grocabulary.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we're going for it no matter what, and uh and uh and and we're we're going to to to make it happen because we have to, you know, because of what's at stake here.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's like so much on the line, and uh, and we got to move mountains and do everything we possibly can to make it happen, and that's what we intend to do.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I appreciate that you haven't uh given up and that you're fighting the good fight.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know like a lot of uh unfortunately refi projects have kind of winded down or shut down in recent years.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a tough market.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a lot of ups and downs, obviously.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great that you're you know continuing that fight.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when you know impact is at the kind of heart of what you're doing, it's a lot easier uh to keep that fight going than if it's just purely a financial thing, right?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great that you're uh continuing to fight that fight, you're still going all in and really looking to uh to build this into something that's huge and can really uh save lots of lives, like you said, around the world.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you're a busy guy, obviously.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you're also heading off to to Climate Week in New York uh this week, which is uh exciting.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: You have that big launch coming out that you talked about.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, what's your call to action for listeners to kind of wrap up this conversation?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: What is one thing you want to leave them with and anything that they should know or do to get more or like a call to action for how they can get more involved and support your work?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, brother.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um Okay, I believe everyone in this world can make a positive impact, and there's three core categories through which you could do that with your time, with value, or with money.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if you don't got money right now, you might have time, you know?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we got an ambassador program.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have like seven reward mechanisms, and uh, and you could put in time to make this tree economy really grow and grow and grow.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, all you have to do is go to x.com slash tree gens.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's TW T-R-W-G-E-N-S.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Every follower plants a tree, so do that, but check our latest article, become an ambassador, um, and uh tap into some of those reward mechanisms and help make this thing really uh grow and grow and grow and make history together, be a part of it, right?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you could also plant trees with your time, and also you know, thanks to tree gens.app, you can you can get paid for it.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, and everyone can plant a tree, by the way.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you eat fruit, germinate the seed, go plant some trees, you know.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a, you know, even if you don't have a massive backyard, maybe there's a community garden, maybe there's a rooftop or a balcony somewhere, you can have a pop plant.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like everyone can grow something, and I really recommend that you do.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then value, like maybe you might know someone, uh like an impact investor or someone that could open a certain door or a collaboration.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Someone just said they're gonna introduce us to a to a minister today when I was on spaces, it could actually be a big, you know, big game changer for.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: For us, like that doesn't take time.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: That could be like literally a couple seconds, and uh, and and that could really make a massive, massive difference.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then finally, there's money, right?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have much time, you know, maybe you can just uh you know get some of these regenerative assets, whether it be a tree token when the pool is launching uh next week, or when uh or or the bee tree start.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is like you're getting in on the ground, ground level here.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Even if this comes out tomorrow, like it's still super, super early, like we're just about to launch.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that it usually grows is uh it's from the ground level.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but yeah, so if you can uh join our join our Dow, join the tree economy, participate in it, make your impact through this amazing movement.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and it's and it's not just about us again.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you have your own ideas, your own startup, your own impactful solution, uh, we should all be supporting one another in there.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: So head to head to the telegram, which you could find in our link tree or or wherever, t.me slash tree gen fam, and uh, and and and just share what you're doing so that we can support you because you know, in the end, uh the love you take is equal to the love you make.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as people are just spreading love and helping one another, you're gonna get pretty far.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh and and it feels it feels great to do good as well.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um let's grow.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I just gave you like 12 called actions.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's good that there's like different ways for people to get involved based on kind of what their capacity is, time, financial.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I really appreciate that.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, appreciate you.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for taking the time to once again share your wisdom and inspiration.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: I leave this conversation uh, you know, inspired, pumped up, ready to go.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you have a great way of just imparting energy on people.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: And for those listening, I'll include all the links in the show notes so you can get involved, learn more, support this work.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy, I appreciate you.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for being here today.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you, Drew.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: A huge thank you to Jimmy Cohen for sharing his wisdom and energy with us today.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much to take away from this conversation, but a few things stand out that I want to highlight.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: The first is the power of perseverance.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Planting for 24 hours straight in the mud through the pain, and then getting up and training to do it all over again.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's amazing.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: I would never be able to do this.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: His relentless commitment is inspiring.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: The four-minute mile effect is a really cool analogy as well.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you show the world something is possible and suddenly everyone believes they can do it too.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: The second is how tree gens is using technology to solve real problems.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's the use of blockchain and on-chain incentives to reward planters and build a global community, and the AI tree counting to bring trust and transparency to a space that has struggled with both.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the third is the sheer scale of the ambition.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: A billion tree day sounds audacious, maybe even impossible.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the kind of goal that moves people.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when you hear how Jimmy thinks about coordination, community, and incentives, flipping the script so that regeneration is finally rewarded rather than just asked for, you can start to see how it could happen.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy has proved that one person with enough passion and persistence really can spark a global movement.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: And whether you're planting trees, funding them, or building something of your own, there's a lesson in that for all of us.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: So for those who want to learn more and get involved, we've included all the relevant links in the show notes.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: A huge thank you to Jimmy for the work he's doing and for sharing his story and energy with us today.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that wraps up today's episode of CryptoUltras.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you're inspired to explore more stories at the intersection of Web3 and Social Impact, be sure to visit us at CryptoAltrux.com for articles, resources, and more.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you love what you heard, it would mean the world if you could rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your support is huge in helping us reach more listeners like you and keeping the platform going strong.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to having you back for the next episode.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto.