10 Questions With BoyCope [Episode 2]

10 min readJun 14, 2022

Yello, guys!
Welcome to the show; It’s 10 Questions With BoyCope. Be advised that this is an avenue for interaction where we get to learn about the success stories, personal life, interesting facts and even uninteresting facts if there be any, about our guests; both inside and outside the web3 space.

This is the second episode of the show and we are glad to have you readers in our virtual midst. I’m pleased to welcome to the show our guest in the person of Maxime. If you’re conversant with Levx DAO, you would know Maxime. He is not hard to find.

BoyCope: Maxime is a pro gamer, a developer and more. He literally has more skills than we know. Maxime, you’re welcome to the show.

Maxime:
Good morning BoyCope
Thanks for having me
not sure about a “pro gamer”

BoyCope:
Hahaha. Pro gamer because I’ve seen you excel greatly in the games played on Discord.

Tell me, Maxime, what skills aside the ones mentioned do you have? I’m definitely sure I missed some.

Maxime:
“Buying the top, selling the bottom” is definitely one I have. I don’t think I excel at anything. I’m trying to be interested in many things but I didn’t practice long enough to acquire top skills in any fields. I’m pretty bad at selling myself, massive lack of confidence.
I finished the game NieR: Automata at 100%. Is it consider as a skill? I think so

BoyCope: Oh, I very much understand that. You finished the game NieR? See? That’s why you’re a gamer. Haha. I believe everyone have skill in buying the top and selling the bottom. Glad to have you around, Maxime. Let’s get on with the show. Ready for Question 1?

Maxime:
Ready!

BoyCope:

Question 1

How do you come about the SharkPunks and LevX project? It’s very evident that you’ve been around for quote a while.

Maxime:

I can’t remember exactly how I ended up on the Discord. in October. Maybe thanks to a MadDogLink tweet. It was SharkPunks Discord first. Then I joined LevX DAO one (few hours after after the last Oh-Geez role was given, rekt). I directly loved the SharkPunks NFT Projects: the community, the pixel art

The vibe in the discord was very welcoming (and still is), you had this amazing Puzzles organized by JuWizd, the weekly spaces on Twitter by SharkpunksNFT.eth

You only had few Sharkpunks minted, project was just starting, you could feel the excitment.

BoyCope:
Wow. That’s amazing. It’s always good to remember the moment one joined something spectacular.

On Question 2 I’d like to ask, If you were asked to compare the uh, hype and activeness of the discord between now and then. What would be your assertion?

Maxime:
Back in October/November, BTC was over 50kUSD, every coin was pumping so everybody was super excited for every new project compared to today. In the current environment it is very difficult to create hype on a project (everything is nosediving). Discord is today way much more organized. People like Cookies or you help to keep it active and LevXDao, Sharpunks NFT are clearly in a building phase. I think it is important to keep the community active at the moment but no need to create hype. Let’s wait for LevX.io to be released for that!

BoyCope:
Well said. I guess the dip is affecting progress to a great extent. We can only hope for the best in coming days.

Question 3 When did you get into crypto and how long have you been in it?

Maxime:
I started to buy crypto in summer 2020. Many guys in my team were in crypto for a while, were speaking about it all day long. It made me curious about it. At the beginning it was on Coinbase, I had no clue what I was buying, was totally random. End of Defi Summer 2020 I started to move out everything from Coinbase and started to use DEX and decentralized platform. The first farm I did was Sushi, few weeks before Chef Naomi left. Was very exciting by the API you could get.

BoyCope:
That’s interesting. Did you experience difficulties when starting out, like the learning process?

Maxime:
Not that much. I had friends to explain me the basics. Being a developer and working the past years for a bank probably helped to make it smooth

BoyCope:
A developer! Finally, I’ve got a chance to ask this. Did you learn developing as a school course or just self training?

Maxime:

I did a school of engineering. My last year I had to choose a speciality field. I had no clue what to do, had been disappointed by everything we had been taught in mechanics, energy or chemistry. I wanted to go back to something very theoretical, something with a pain and piece of paper, so I decided to choose Financial Mathematics. When I finished and started to look for a job it was the financial crisis of 2011 and was quite difficult to find good opportunity. A guy, leading a team of front office developer in a bank, proposed me a job.
To be honest I have no clue why he proposed me the job: I had no experience in programming, didn’t know any languages except Matlab (Which nobody use). I think I just did well at the brain teaser he asked me. At this time I had never imagine to work as a dev, but I knew I liked the brain exercise programming requires and like the name of the team I was joining: Commandos (quick and dirty)

So I said yes.
First day at work he asked me to make a C# program parsing folders, highlighting all the excel files in a drive, checking if they had VBA code and were they password protected. I had one week. Didn’t know what C# was, which IDE to use.
So yes, Google saved me

BoyCope:
Haha. Commandos. Sounds like that clique would be a touh one. Google Indeed always comes to the rescue. Well, with this explanation, it’s clear how you became a developer. I believe many others that didn’t know, will know now.

This brings us to Question 4. The metadata for SharkPunkz NFT. It’s sure related to developing, I think. How’s that going?

Maxime:
It is going well. It takes way much longer than I had imagine initially…. Thought a pixel scanner would do the job quickly, in the end it does not…
I started by listing all the traits and attributes and take screenshots of each of them. Then a code will read each Sharkpunk image and try to find which attributes and traits are in the image. But as you can see when you look at them closely to them there are almost all manually re-worked by the artist so many of them are not automatically flagged by the code.
So the code helps me to create a template file with the most obvious traits/attributes for each sharks and then I have to verify them one by one.
Around 4,000 have been done so far.
Target is end of June.
Might changed based on different factors

BoyCope:
Wow. That must be tedious. It sounds tedious. Is it as stressful as it sounds?

Maxime:
ahaha yes it is tedious. When you have created a Trait = “Jewelry” for “Earrings” or “Golden Rings” and you realize at the Shark Number 4324 that both can be on the same picture and you have to change everything because “Earrings” and “Golden Rings” to make them co-exist it is a big ragging.
right now I’m not stressed. I think when it will be released I will be
as you do not know how people will react.
I am trying to work on it few hours every day (wife not very happy about it) and make sure that the maximum attributes/traits are taken into account
you will for sure have people complaining when it will be released but overall people should be satisfied

BoyCope:
Overall satisfaction is the goal. I must commend you for the work and effort you’ve imputed in it so far. Kudus.

Question 5 there’s this saying we always tie around Zero Money in the Discord in regards to Zero Friends. Holders of ZM. Would you agree with the saying that; zero friends (web3) friends are greater and better than IRL friends?

Maxime:
I disagree! web3 and crypto in general allow you to meet great people, create strong interactions with people from all over the world behind your screen but imo something is missing if you do not meet them irl

BoyCope:
Exactly. Sounds like you plan to meet some IRL soon. Have you met any yet or it’s just a mere plan or thought for now?

Maxime:
I haven’t meet anyone irl yet from Sharkpunks NFT or LevX DAO. But I will be around next week during NFT NYC and most likely ETH CC end of July in Paris so if some community members are around and want to meet irl would be great

BoyCope:
Oh, The Dictator said he’d be in that event.. The ETH CC. So, you might just catch him.

Question 6 What are your hobbies?

Maxime:
Between my job, the involvement on the metadata, my wife and my 2 cats I do not have that much time for hobbies right now . But I’m a big reader, like playing video games, cards with friends or watching movies/series.

BoyCope:
Haha. Suddenly, I’m interested in these cats. What are their names? Are they both females?

Maxime:
Yes, both females. Chachat and Lulu

BoyCope:
Wow. Amazing.

Question 7 What are your dislikes on crypto? Are there any?

Maxime:
Yes, there are many. Among them the pump and dump made by some big Twitter accounts chilling coins/NFT as the new big thing. Or all these forks of existing projects made on new chains: you fork the code, change the website, change by 1% the tokenomics and sell it as something brand new. 2 days of work

And last, people complaining in a DAO because the price is not pumping while they do not anything to build or increase value, just here for the free stuff

BoyCope:
Pheew.. It’s quite disheartening and disappointing. I share those dislikes as well. Especially the plagiarized and forked projects.

For Question 8. Have you ever experienced a difficult financial setback? How did you overcome the challenge, if yes..

Maxime:
I have been lucky enough to never faced any financial setback. In crypto, of course, I had big losses but I have always put money in crypto I was willing to lose. That’s maybe why I am so bad to sell…. I have coins I bought at 9$, I saw them going to 120$ and now they are at 4$. Still holding

BoyCope:
OMG. Wow. That’s the key point. Always investing what one is willing to lose.. I believe people invest more than they can afford to lose..that’s why they experience severe financial setback. Thanks for this, Maxime..

To Question 9 What are your major plans regarding crypto for now? We are obviously in the severe bear period. Things are falling apart on a daily. What are your plans?

Maxime:
Hold and have started to do dollar cost averaging on ETH few weeks ago

BoyCope:
Great. That’s worth a plan.. To guys suffering from financial setback and mismanagement of funds. What would be your advice to them?

Maxime:
People are always remembering the good stories. Everybody is taking about the guys who started with 10$ and became millionaires in crypto but we rarely mention all the ones who lost everything. I really think you should invest money you are willing to lose. Not sure it works if you are only here for the money. You need to engage, build, participate.

BoyCope:
Word, Maxime. Word! True story. Only success stories are so emphasized on..For the last and final Question 10. What is the highest profit you’ve made on crypto?

Maxime:
Probably $Matic. I bought at 2 cents and sold above 2.50$

BoyCope:
Wow. Roughly, how much did you make in total from profits?

Maxime:
Tbh I do not know. I’m overall positive PnL but it is not something I’m not tracking carefully (didn’t connect to my coinbase or binance account for weeks). With most of my coins in farms or in LP and my illiquid jpeg it is difficult to estimate. Not even sure how much I invested initially

BoyCope:
Maxime, I want to believe you have too much money you can’t account for. Perhaps, the Pablo Escobar of Crypto.

Thanks so much for honouring this invitation, Maxime. This conversation opened my mind to new things and basic understanding to things I wasn’t sure of. Thanks once again.

Maxime:
Ahahah, totally not, far from that!
Thank you very much BoyCope