Regularly, we put the spotlight on an active member of the Alephium community. This is an opportunity to showcase their contributions to the ecosystem, what drives them and what they are passionate about! More episodes: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, and #15.
Mikael is a dev and a nature lover. And it turns out he likes Alephium a lot 😉. Check the interview to know more about him!
What can we call you, and where should we picture you?
Hey! I’m Mikael, a full-stack developer from Finland in my late twenties.
Tell us a bit about yourself, your passions in life, and your hobbies.
I’d say I’m a pretty regular dude who was first into crypto as an investment, but as time passed, I’ve transitioned to be increasingly in it for the tech. Besides crypto, I love photography, music and going to shows where moshpits are common. Being from Finland, nature is always nearby, so another of my favourite activities is going to fireplaces on lake shores to hang out with friends, sometimes for way longer than originally planned.
How & when did you find out about Alephium?
I found out about Alephium on just a random evening in late 2022. I hadn’t been that active in crypto for years, but I just got the feeling to try and look for some interesting new projects. This leads me to a particular YouTube comment requesting a technical analysis on Alephium. I googled the name and landed on the Alephium website, which at the time was advertising “a new paradigm” Layer 1 and I remember being quite skeptical of that statement initially.
After a bit of due diligence, I found that the statement was actually completely accurate! The more I read about it, the more it just clicked for me that Alephium encapsulated all the lessons learned from cryptocurrencies that came before it. Moreover, its elegant sharding algorithm and the energy-efficient take on PoW really caught my attention.
What keeps you excited about Alephium?
Right now, I would say I’m really looking forward to how the ecosystem develops during and after the first hackathon. I’m especially excited to see how projects in the ecosystem will be able to leverage Alephium’s strengths and really propel the whole crypto space to the next level with safer and more user-friendly dApps.
Another thing I love seeing is the hash rate increasing. While it won’t happen in the short term, a major milestone I’m always looking forward to is the activation of PoLW and its effect on the market dynamics. There’s also the network upgrade and all its exciting improvements, but if I had to mention one thing, it’d be gasless transactions and how different dApps may utilise it to onboard new Users.
Which projects and dapps are you excited about?
Ayin is one of the major projects I’ve always followed, and I am excited to see what kind of new features they will be rolling out in the future. AlphPad looks to be another promising one for kickstarting new projects on Alephium.
And how could I not mention the only Number Go Up, which has just been slaying it recently!
Where do you see Alephium as a project being in the next two years?
I can foresee Alephium being a serious contender as one of the top DeFi platforms in the crypto space. The more projects that build on Alephium, the more people will start to notice the benefits it offers for both users and developers — and this snowball, I believe, is already rolling. I’m also looking forward to increased interoperability with other chains, which will greatly increase Alephium's exposure to more builders and users!
Anything else you’d like to add?
Just wanted to give huge props to the core team for being so humble and just brilliantly executing their vision for Alephium. This thing is really going places, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts on it.
This concludes #16 of the community highlights. Thank you, Mikael, for sharing your passion with the Alephium community and contributing all across! We’ll return with another episode of the community highlights in March 2024!
Meanwhile, you can follow Alephium on Github, Twitter. Join the conversation on Discord, Telegram or Reddit.
