Community Highlight #3, digdug
Once in a while, the spotlight is put on one active member of the Alephium community. This is an opportunity to showcase community members’ contributions to the ecosystem, what drives them and what they are passionate about! More episodes: #1 here, #2 here, #4 here, #5 here and #6 here..
In a jungle of Buidlers, Miners, Hodlers, Solar- and Lunar-punks, this peer stands out through engagement and amicability. With eloquence and a very good meme-game, he types through the chat in a fine balance between technological moonshots and realism. Give it up for Alephium OG Digdug, a central pillar in the Discord channels’ atmosphere and a subtly interrogating voice of the community.
What can we call you and where should we picture you?
You can call me digdug! I’m from Texas, USA.
Tell us about yourself/your persona
To save you the long story, I have an eclectic background. My undergrad was in Mechanical Engineering, however for the past decade I’ve worked in the world of finance & private equity. I’ve been involved in the crypto world since 2012. Started mining in early 2013, was part of the first few rugpull events including Butterfly Labs ASICs and Mt. Gox. Stuck around despite that, and very glad I did 😊.
How did you find out about Alephium?
I found out about Alephium from another community member. I was asking questions in a mining discord channel about new mining algorithms, and Blake3 was brought up.
What excites you about Alephium?
Alephium excites me because I believe it is the next logical iteration of blockchain tech. If crypto was the automobile/transportation industry, I would consider Bitcoin the Model T. It proved the foundational concepts of the automobile work. However, the auto industry didn’t stop there. Advancements were made by various “developers”, which have given rise to the modern auto/transport industry we know today.
Are there 5,000 different automobile types? No. But there are a few dozen intentional designs that handle 99% of the demands of the world today. This is similar to how I see the development of the crypto industry. Once we know something can be done, we always want to make it faster, safer, cheaper, & more efficient. Alephium takes the foundational principles of DLT, PoW, and battle-tested UTxO, and builds upon them with a novel sharding design, an elegant-yet-simple language “Ralph”, and PoLW.
How do you contribute to the Alephium ecosystem?
I contribute as best I can without being a developer.
I contribute as best I can without being a developer. I’ve been mining Alephium since mid-January of 2022, and try to stay active in the discord to answer newcomers’ questions!
What makes you excited about the future of Alephium?
I am excited about the future of Alephium because I believe the long term ecosystem of crypto will be multi-chain. Each project will serve a specific purpose. Alephium’s design allows it to fill the role of various use-cases because of its scalability and speed.
You seem to do a lot of research, what are the three most relevant aspects of a project that checks your boxes?
The most important boxes of a project for me:
- The core development team.
Who are they, what’s their background, how long have they been active in the space, can I find any previous existence of them on community forums. All of these things I believe are extremely important. A talented marketing team can make even the worst projects seem attractive. That’s why I think it’s important to research who is actually building the tech. - Tokenomics.
I believe transparent tokenomics are essential to any genuine crypto project. If there’s an ICO for fundraising purposes, who provided the funds, how much do they own, what’s their cost basis and vesting schedule? - What is the value proposition of the project, and is it reasonable?
If a project has trouble clearly defining what problem(s) it is they are intending to solve with their tech, this does not help build confidence. Furthermore, how reasonable is the solution being proposed? How many rugpulls does the crypto industry have to go through before realizing extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof? Not just some 3 page whitepaper with equations and schematics. Alephium’s proposal makes sense, is realistic, and most importantly, it backs up these claims by having a working mainnet that reflects them.
