119: How TEIA Was Rebuilt After Hic et Nunc

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This week on TezTalks Radio, host Brandon Langston sits down with Ryan Tanaka, a longtime builder in the Tezos art ecosystem behind projects like TEIA, teia.cafe, and Tezcon.

The conversation starts with a moment many remember, when Hic et Nunc shut down. For some, that was the end. For others, including Ryan, it became the reason to rebuild.

🎙️ This episode explores what it actually takes to keep a creative ecosystem alive when the platform disappears.

🔍 In this episode, we explore:

• Why Ryan chose to rebuild after Hic et Nunc instead of moving on
• How fragmentation across tools like teia.cafe created real friction for users
• Why music and on-chain media remain under-discovered on Tezos
• What it’s like to build and ship features inside a DAO
• Why simple ideas like wallet-to-wallet messaging are harder than they seem
• What’s still missing for artists in the space today
• How builders stay motivated through quieter market cycles
• Whether decentralized platforms can avoid the same patterns as Web2
• Why the Tezos art community has endured while others faded