Badfish
Who are you? What’s your background?

Van Xan
Before getting into design, UX, development, etc. I was a builder and designer, working with homes, outdoor living spaces, and that sort of thing. My fascination with building things and understanding how they work drove me into teaching myself how to design and code. I have no formal education in that field and am 100% self-taught when it comes to Product and User Experience. 

I got my first design job at Wells Fargo in 2013 as the designer for their mobile app.  So here I am, a self-taught entry-level designer working with MBAs and PhDs just grinding day in and day out, pushing myself to be better, and rising up through the organization. Around this same time I discovered Bitcoin and started some speculative buying in the $200 dollar range. I was buying XRP, Stellar, and Doge super early. Knowing the ins and outs of the traditional banking world and how that all worked, I was fully bought in to the crypto ideology. I hated how banks operated. I hated the corporate bullshit. Honestly, I wish I’d never learned how corrupt and nasty that industry really is. And so I thought to myself, the crypto space is really missing good tech and design. It functions, but it’s confusing. I’m gonna create my own business.

Badfish
Man, great story. You don’t meet a lot of UX people in crypto so it’s great to connect. We’ll chat more on that later. What sort of company did you decide to start?

Van Xan
I left the bank to build a better digital wallet they combined crypto and cash with a layer 2 for interoperability between people places and things. We raised millions and operated for about three years before going bankrupt at the end of the 2018 bull run. We rode Bitcoin from 18K to 3K and had to sunset the company as a result. Not only that, but things gotta pretty rough for me personally. I got sim-jacked, my number ported, personal pictures trending on Twitter, blackmailed, you name it. Embarrassed, stressed out, and dealing with some personal shit, I decided to get out of crypto. 

Badfish
Damn, sorry to hear about that stuff. Looks like you got back on your feet and made it back into crypto though. How did you get where you are today?

Van Xan
Yeah. After about 5 years I checked back in to Twitter, caught up with some old friends, and decided I wanted to get back into the game. I fell in love with Solana and the whole ecosystem around it. The foundation, the blockchain side of things, and especially memecoins and the meme economy. It was all so fascinating to me. I started helping friends launch their memecoins, learning about community, art, building, and after I became more familiar, started speculating on coins myself. I rediscovered my passion for the space and like the first time I jumped into crypto, I saw something was missing. Why is nobody doing sports? There is no $SPORTS ticker. This could be huge. And I knew I had to figure out the direction for it. I started doing my research, and noticed there were a bunch of athlete-based coins but it’s tough for them to compete against the Pepes, Ponkes, and Slerfs of the space. That’s when it hit me: let’s meme ESPN. SportsCenter perfect. It felt natural. There’s so much content to meme in sports, from the IRL moments to custom animations. I have a deep desire to incorporate normies and retail and combining crypto culture with real sports media seemed like the perfect way to do it.

Badfish
Right on man. SpurtzCentor is one of those ideas that when you see it, you ask yourself, why hasn’t this been done already? Kudos to you for filling that gap in a massive market, both in crypto and outside of it.

So tell me about starting SpurtzCentor. How did you launch? What was your vision? Where are you today?

Van Xan
We did a straight launch with our own liquidity pool, tokenomics, and all that. No Pump Fun. 20% was allocated to liquidity, burnt liquidity to match, and held back 80% for early bird team, allocations, devs, partnerships, and everything else. We were aiming for the stars, shooting for the moon if you will. I wanted to have plenty of tokens to get onto multiple exchanges when the time was right.

My vision was pretty simple: build a Web3 AthletFi platform that gives the athlete memes a place to promote themselves. I wanted to help build them up, much like an incubator in the VC world, supporting them with content, creating a symbiotic community for them to thrive in. This was the grand vision but it was slow going.

Like a lot of other projects in the space, if not most, there was a ton of hype at launch. That first week was full of excitement, the community was bumping, and the chart was flying. Then, as things do, it cooled off a bit, and we lost some core team members who were no longer willing to put in the effort. It was rocky for a bit as we lacked experience, dedication, and were trying to find our voice and the people to help build it right. I was in that typical grind of joining daily Spaces, forming relationships wherever I could, and coming up with ideas. Just straight grinding 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

And today we’re still after that initial vision. Building a decentralized Web3 sports media company. A long play powered by user-generated content and a global love of sports. It’s a long play and will take time, but I do believe that we’ll get to a point where we bridge the gap between crypto and retail by way of sports.

Badfish
I feel you on all that man. The launch hype, people bailing when things get rough. It’s tough to stomach at times, but you just gotta keep at it. Consistency is key. It’s cliche, but for good reason: Rome wasn’t built in a day.

So last thing, then I know you gotta jump to another call. I’ve been seeing chat about memecoin betting in the SpurtzCenter Telegram. What’s this all about?

Van Xan
Some of us on the team wanted to get into building a Web3 sportsbook. Obviously we aren’t the first, but it’s a massive market and aligns to everything we’re doing with $SPORTS. We quickly figure out there’s way more hurdles than we want to deal with in that direction so we huddled up, talked about alternatives, and did some research. Through all the effort we put into the sports side of betting, and being a memecoin ourselves, we realized there was an opportunity that made more sense and nobody was doing: memecoin betting. We figured everyone is already betting on Pump Fun coins with absolutely terrible odds, so why not create a wager for the things we’re already betting on in a way. Let people bet on the ideas and the teams behind them in a different way than they are today. We saw an opportunity to be the first-mover as a Solana memecoin casino, if you will.

We’re building a platform called Riot Bets that will allow people to be their own bookie, all onchain. We’ll eventually have props, parlays, and fantasy, just like the sports betting industry today. A sort of SocialFi Layer 2 for the Solana memecoin space. It’s a really cool product that has the potential to change the way people interact with and gamble on memecoins. 

Badfish
Sounds incredible. I began my design career at DraftKings and so fantasy sports and betting has always been a part of who I am. Now I’m getting deeper into the memecoin space and you can bet your ass I’ll be on Riot when you launch.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time today Van. You’ve got a truly great story and I’m excited to share it with the space. I know that we’ll connect again soon but in the meantime, take care.

Van Xan
Thanks man. Definitely look forward to chatting again and hearing more about your DraftKings experience. Would love to pick your brain as it related to Riot sometime. Later Badfish.