Jordan Jefferson & T.J. Miller: DOGE is Serious Business at KBW2025

[music] HOW WE DOING, STEWIE SAGE? LET'S HEAR IT. COME ON, EVERYBODY CLAP. LET'S GET SOME YES. YES.

YES. [applause]

There we go. All right.

I love you.

Thank you. And I love you, too. Everybody's been yelling that out at all these uh panels. Um, how are you, Jordan?

I'm doing great. Having a blast.

Yeah, that's great. So, Dogeos, uh, why are you here?

I mean, I'm here to have fun.

Um, for me, fun is Doge. So, we're here building the app layer for Dogecoin, building the Dogecoin community. Uh, you know, just having a blast at KBW. I think the the bigger question is is why are you here? Because I remember we met back in, you know, Bitcoin Vegas and, uh, we're in a really loud nightclub and I was trying to he's asking me what do I do?

And I'm talking about Dogecoin and this and that and he just kind of shuts me up. goes, "Dude, I get it. I'm a comedian and Dogecoin is a joke." And I was like, "All right, all right. Maybe he gets it."

What did [snorts] you think?

Well, you know, I uh I do get a lot of people saying, "Why are you here? Why are you in this space? What are you doing here? Uh why you're in Korea?" And first of all, I'm staying in the hotel.

But secondly, um I kind of I was a Bitcoiner since 2018. I have a friend Brandon Plasters who's a ETH Maxi and uh I really hadn't paid a lot of attention to Doge and I knew that it was funny. I knew it was a joke but I didn't see why I should have any involvement in it. And when I met you I thought okay is this guy funny or is he an you know, and uh later on uh you know, we came up with an idea for you sort of pitched me an idea for a show and I told my wife about it. I said, "I'm going to go meet this guy."

We were in New York City and I said, "I'm going to go meet this guy." And I wondered to myself, is is this guy actually funny? Like, he's involved in Doge, but is he actually funny? Are the Doge people, that community, are they really funny? And uh I went and I met you and uh I thought you you know dressed sort of strangely but right away I kind of said wow this guy is really funny and so the Doge community is funny and I'm a comedian.

So suddenly I realized it was the intersection of comedy and Doge. But then you explained uh what Doge OS is. So can you explain that to everybody? No.

Can can you explain that?

Yes. or are you one of those celebrities who doesn't really know anything and is just here to make a buck?

Just make a buck for Fartcoin. Um, no. I'm uh I'm excited because Doge was sort of this joke, but as a Bitcoiner, I always thought meme coins, you got to stay away from them because they don't have any utility. They're not built around sound tech. Um, it's just it wasn't interesting to me because it it kind of it's just a joke.

And then uh Jordan pitched to me that he built something called Doge OS and it was going to be an operating system on the Doge blockchain so that people could go from the community and elsewhere to build on the Doge blockchain. And it really hit me that that was so exciting, so unique, and so funny because to have a fake thing that you build a real thing on that you can build fake or real things on top of that to me was very exciting and funny. And when you said that, I thought, "Wow, this would be kind of revolutionary that something that's a joke could be so real." And so that that was really really exciting. And you explained, you know, to bring people from the Doge community elsewhere, uh, to build on the Doge blockchain.

So, yeah, can you talk about that?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, all all we wanted to do in the Doge world and, you know, we built the largest Dogecoin wallet um, many years ago. We've been in the Doge community.

Let's give him a round of applause. You made the first Doge wallet, my Doge. [applause] And so, uh, we, uh, you know, we've been in the Doge world for a while and we just kind of wanted to have more fun with it. We have all these crazy ideas. What if we built this?

What if we did this? What if we did that? But because we are kind of, you know, crypto native OGs, whatever you want to call it. Um, we wanted to build DAPs, we wanted to build decentralized, we wanted to build trustless and so on and so forth. And so, uh, we never built a lot of the crazy ideas we had because there wasn't the right way to do it on Doge, with Doge, etc.

Um, so Doge West is really just a way to, you know, take this massive community, tens of millions of holders, um, a lot of fun, best meme in the world, etc., and give the community a way to actually now build a whole ecosystem around it because it's just funny.

And what I've been saying is it's really interesting that Doge is probably the biggest brand name next to Bitcoin. If I tell anybody about Ethereum, you know, or Salana or any, nobody knows about that. But I think even my mother knows what Dogecoin is and probably thinks I'm a really an idiot for uh being involved with it. Um but once I explain to people about Doge OS, it they they're more likely to get that or understand it or because they're familiar with Dogecoin for so long. And then I love that you mention um you know that Doge that sort of the world has gotten away from what the spirit of Doge is.

Yeah. I think um the Doge meme is so special. It's maybe you know the biggest meme in the world. I think it it came at a time that society, humanity in general started to see the impact of memes across life. I mean you know presidents can get elected based on memes.

It's uh it's a crazy time to be alive. And so, um, a lot of what we're doing, and that's that's kind of what we're going to show everybody today, is is fun stuff just around the Doge meme and Doge culture to show that, yes, Dogecoin is a coin based on this meme. Yes, there's a, you know, government department based on this meme, but it's really all about the meme at the end of the day. Not everything has to be like a token. Not everything has to be a DAP on the blockchain.

We also have this, you know, crazy cultural movement that, you know, we can just do fun stuff with. And I got to ask you because we'll get back to the reason that we're here together and what we're working on together, but I you know I don't think I've even asked you this, but what do people say when you say Doge Doge OS is this thing like it's it's a operating system on Doge? Do they get that? What's their reaction to it?

I mean, most people I would say most people roll their eyes at first. They're like, why why are you building that? Um,

I get that a lot when I talk about being here.

Exactly. And then I would say, you know, either like 10 seconds or sometimes days later they come back and they start coming to me with all these ideas like, "Hey man, I was thinking about this." Like, actually, I think it really makes sense. Like, we could actually build like serious DeFi on Doge. We could do this, we could do that.

And I'm like, "Yeah, I mean, that's what I would have told you if you didn't, you know, laugh at me and walk away." So, the reception is actually pretty good, but it takes a minute. Uh, because people just think like, "Wow, that's dumb."

Yeah. I mean the idea of DeFi even be you know being said in the same my buddy Brandon is working on he goes it's dogefi you can do that and so uh the idea of those two things being associated I think is really hard because the main thing that people think about when you talk about dogecoin is there's no operability here there's nothing to do on this thing it is just I didn't even know until I met you that sort of the main thing was tipping you know or sending your buddy Dogecoin because he bought the pizza that night and that was it. That is the only thing. And so I think you know the nexus of that or those things intersecting is uh difficult for people to understand in the beginning and then once they do it opens up the possibility because the infrastructure the brand name everything is so big it's so embedded in culture and you know again I know people that don't really know what Bitcoin is. They've heard of it.

They don't know why you would ever have it. I did a tour um where I was talking about NFTTS. I'm a stand-up comedian and uh I went all over the country uh in the United States and I would ask audiences, "Does anyone here hold cryptocurrency?" And people would clap, you know, not a lot of people, usually about 10 people out of 300 or something, more like 30. And then I would say, "Okay, who here holds Bitcoin?"

And not really anybody would clap. a couple people and I would say, "Has anyone heard of Ethereum?" Nothing. Just absolutely no one in the public knew about that. And then I would say, "Well, you said you uh hold cryptocurrency.

What What do you have?" And very consistently people would say, "Well, I have some Dogecoin." you know, and so that was this thing for me where and at the time I was like, why why are more people holding Doge than Bitcoin? It just seemed crazy to me. And when I met you, it was interesting to learn about uh the community and that there were all these people that bought Dogecoin because they thought it was going to go to the moon or it was going to be some ticket somewhere, but that, you know, you told me it's actually part of a bigger thing and people join that community and they really uh they really benefit from it, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean it it's pretty special because, you know, before Dogecoin, nobody really knew you could get super rich creating a memecoin. I'm pretty sure the word memecoin wasn't really a thing back then. And so, there's a lot of people who just, you know, fell in love with the meme, thought it was silly, had no expectation of making money. I know tons of people who made generational wealth on paper when Dogecoin went to the moon.

Yeah.

And never sold and wrote it all the way back down because they never had the intention of making money in the first place. So there's like a a really cool community spirit. Everyone who's still around after, you know, the crazy hype and Elon and this and that. Um they just kind of I know found friendship, found community, love the meme, etc. Um and I think it's kind of it's just like a special place to be.

That's kind of why I fell in love with it. But um I think we both had a kind of similar path to Doge because we were both Bitcoin guys before we got into Doge.

Yeah, that's right. You started in Bitcoin and you were working Do you want to tell people about that really quickly? I mean, yeah, I was building really early in the Bitcoin space, like 2010, 2011, and, you know, kind of a a crypto user ever since. But I remember when Dogecoin launched, I also didn't get it, you know? I mean, I thought, "Yeah, that's funny, but why why would I buy this?"

And I had friends being like, "It's just fun. Just like buy some for fun. Just mine it for fun." Um, yeah. And I didn't really get it at first.

When it clicked, when I got it, when I started to, you know, get involved with the community, everything changed. But you're a, you know, early Bitcoin guy as well. What's you know what has led you to Doge and you know what's it been like when you talk to your kind of Bitcoin maxi friends or even your Bitcoin maxi wife for instance?

Yeah, my wife is a Bitcoin maxi so I think she's a little pissed that I'm here for this reason. Uh but yeah, I started as a Bitcoiner because uh I met the Wlvoss twins and became friends with them from the television show Silicon Valley and they I said, "What are you working on when I first met them?" And they said, "This thing called Bitcoin." And I was like, "Okay." And Cameron said, "You should look into it."

And so I did. And I kind of orangepilled myself, went down the rabbit hole that every single person in here went down. Uh had the experience that every single person in here had, which is your friends and family are like, "You're such a crazy idiot." Um, and then kind of fell in love with the ideology of it. And you know, Bitcoin is truth, Bitcoin is freedom.

And so I was really drawn to the philosophy. Uh and I think what was interesting is as I became a guy that spoke at Bitcoin conferences, was on the cover of Bitcoin magazine, I started to realize that they are so self-s serious and it was difficult for me to really bring any comedy into that space. And so that's what's ironic to me is that I never really looked at Doge and thought about, well, hey, these guys are funny. This is funny. you know, this is the original meme.

It was the genesis of memes in the first place and being so popular. And uh but again, I was a Bitcoiner, so I thought uh you know, it's it's not it's not worth even any of my attention. And then meeting you was the first time that I sort of understood that it's more than Dogecoin. It's really, it has its own ideology, philosophy, community, and it is not self-s serious. It's about laughing.

It's about connecting with people. And I thought that was fascinating. And I'm I just to me to myself, I go, I can't believe I didn't even consider this. And then when you talked about Doge OS, it really blew my mind because I was like, wait a second. What if this was, you know, something like Ethereum, but had the community and the ideology of something like Bitcoin, right?

And wasn't solely about making money, store of value, all of that. Um, it was about being funny. It was about having a sense of humor about yourself. I always say it's really important for people to be uh good sports, like to be a good sport about themselves and about the world around them. And uh I just realized that they're doing this in Korean real time and it's really amazing.

But I kind of wonder if you talk really fast if they were able to keep up with exactly what I'm talking about. I think I could talk fast enough that they wouldn't be able to. Nope, they're able to. Okay. Uh, so that was my path to Doge and Doge OS.

And I just think you had this idea that no one considered. And the best ideas, and I think everyone in here knows that this the best ideas are the ones that when they happen, you go, I was right in front of my face the whole time. I can't believe I didn't think of this. As a comedian, the best jokes are the ones where you go, why didn't I think of that? And that's what I thought.

I thought that was the caliber of the idea that you had. It's really something that's never happened before. And the great thing is everyone in here will uh see a ton of panels where everyone says this has never happened before ever. This is the newest thing. This is going to be incredible.

It's going to change the world. This is really something. Um but none of them are like funny. No, no one is joking about it. No one has a sense of humor about themsel or the idea.

So, Dojo S is the first thing like that. And then you came to me with an idea for a show. Do you want to just pitch that really quick?

Real quick, cuz we're running out of time. And that's kind of the whole point we're here. I mean, so we're building a bunch of serious stuff, but because we think it's funny, right? It's funny if Dogecoin gets bigger and bigger. It's funny if a technologically superior blockchain is, you know, less adopted.

It's just ridiculous. Um, you know, we're also doing something fun which is uh a concept you guys are about to see. So we we made a little proof of concept of basically a you know something that's not Dogecoin but it's Doge meme and Yeah. Tell

Yeah. So we kind of came and he goes what if we had a Doge News Network

and it's a show and you're the voice of the dog is what we came together sort of. So I would be the voice of Doge and it's and I said I don't want to do another show about crypto, you know, about tech. And he said, 'N no, it's citizen journalism that you're really talking about. It's a real news show. And I said, that is the funniest thing I've ever heard.

Why don't I voice it and I'm going to get the director from Deadpool to direct it? So if you would like to see, do you guys want to see by round of applause, do you want to see the PO? All right, here we go. I can't believe I just said PC. Nice.

Hello, I am the Doge dog. You know me from Doacoin, uh, Dogacoin or other ways that people mispronounce it. I'm here interviewing Elon Musk to figure out quite a few things. Specifically, is he going to put dogs in space?

[music]

Okay, let's start at the beginning. Do you ever pet dogs?

Never.

Okay. [music] Um, do you think it's a good idea for you to spread your seed all over town as it were?

Yeah, the Yeah, I wish it wasn't so hard. Um,

do you think it's been a good idea to name your kids [music] what you name them? You got one called Ax Eve E R O Bx. [music] Um, and when I tell people that, they're like, "What?"

Sorry. Um, the moon's out as full moon tonight.

And what the space flight thing? What are [music] you trying to do?

I think it's important that humanity become a multilanet species.

Even dogs?

Yes, that would that was the idea.

Have you ever pet a dog ever?

I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

No. Nope. Much. Wow. There you have it.

It's a weird thing he's done so much for Doge. Otherwise, I would have bit him in the dick, but been pretending to sniff his crotch. That's a Doge trick as old as the dog in the book. This is DOA News Network.

[applause]

It's pretty fun. Did you guys like it? We want to know the most important person. So, uh, you know, we're excited about it. I think that we want it, uh, we're going to do full, uh, interviews with people and real journalism and some of it will be dog related, not all of it.

Um, but what's your vision for it?

I mean, I I think people need to just uh, you know, continue to have fun with the Doge meme. And I think especially these days, especially how it kind of became politicized, especially how I don't know, the whole world and even our industry is becoming super politicized. There's nothing funnier than seeing, you know, the Doge dog interview a president, interview Elon Musk for real, that kind of thing. And it's even funnier because when he's interviewing them, it's he's actually not the dog and he's just looks like himself and he's like barking in front of them and that kind of thing. So, I think that'll be hilarious.

Yeah. And I think we just again want to bring back the spirit of Doge and bring that funniness and that comedy and that fun back to everyone and the spirit of Doge. Let's bring it back.

Let's have fun.

All right. Thank you guys so much. We so appreciate it. [applause]

[music]