2020: The Year of Ethereum Engagement

How some 2020 resolutions are already coming to fruition!

As a Romanian immigrant who witnessed the constraints of a totalitarian regime, if only for a few short years, the path to blockchain was always going to happen for me. 2019 marked the 30th anniversary of the Romanian revolution. Had it not happened, my life would have been very different indeed. The freedom to travel, access information and resources, to speak my mind without retaliation and having a choice are all incredibly important. Finding ways to enable them for others even more so. My strong belief in this technology’s power to level out the playing field in terms of access is what’s been fuelling my contributions in the Ethereum ecosystem for the past two years.

I got involved in the blockchain space back in 2017, as one of those rare (still) non-technical blockchain builders. I have an experiential marketing and communications background so one of my key goals has always been to “translate” all the amazing work being done in the space into inclusive, relatable and accessible language and use cases.

At the start of 2018, shortly after the release of the StandardBounties protocol and the very first explorer, I joined the Bounties Network. My work as a co-founder was all about expanding and diversifying the use of crypto across verticals, communities, and geographies. I am incredibly proud of the variety of live projects we were able to create and the incredible organisations we’ve been lucky enough to call our partners.

We sunsetted the project at the start of this year due to a plethora of reasons but what we managed to achieve with a shoestring budget and a small team proves that innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not all about money. It’s about the people you work with, the ideas you have and how committed you are to your mission.

And because that mission to bring web3 to reality continues to be my driver, I am excited to take on my next challenge. It’s a natural progression, really, since I’ve already been involved with this project and some of their work in driving the blockchain conversation forward and expanding the use of crypto. In joining the OST team as Chief Engagement Officer, I aim to continue and amplify my community and ecosystem development work. I’ve always been interested in improving our human experience, particularly when it comes to broader access to social and economic freedom.

As an illustration of that fit, I posted a video on Pepo in September last year, shortly after I started using the app. The video was about Brandon, a homeless member of the Bounties Network Community who’s laptop had finally stopped working. I put a call out to the community for a used laptop around the Phoenix, Arizona area. Within 48 hours, I had collected over $250 in Pepo Coins — donations from other Pepo users so that Brandon might buy a laptop and continue his exploration of the cryptoverse. These are the life changing applications of this technology and they are the applications that interest me, motivate me and they are the applications that will push the ecosystem forward.

The emphasis OST puts on UX and accessibility when it comes to applications like Pepo helps bridge the gap between a nascent technology like blockchain and broader audiences.This is something many projects miss when building their solutions but it is something I deeply appreciate. With Bounties, we won the Devcon IV UX Awards in 2018 and always focused on user centric design when building out the explorer and I want to continue working with a project that follows the same path in thinking human first. The web3 world is being built to serve us as individuals and communities of 360 degree humans, not the one dimensional versions current models value.

I’ve always been focused on communities and the power they can generate when they are empowered. Joining the OST team to continue and turbo charge that focus feels like a 2020 resolution already coming to fruition.