Base Protocol Team
Why BASE is Going Public
We originally planned to launch the Base Protocol as an anonymous project, in the interest of keeping focus on the idea and the technology — not the team behind it.
However, during the ILO phase, we believe it is important that individuals purchasing BASE have as much information on the project as we can make available, including team backgrounds. We hope to eventually roll the team back into a more development focused, behind-the-scenes position. For now, we think it’s important that you know who we are.
Team
Chris Peña. Head of Development — Full Stack
Chris has been programming professionally for almost 10 years. He has had the opportunity to develop and implement innovative systems that span across several industries; blockchain, natural gas, electric, real estate, virtual reality, and payment / identity verifications. He is also known for his YouTube channel, Learn with Coffee (18k+ subscribers), where he live codes apps and teaches programming through in-depth video tutorials. Chris is an excellent programmer and also has extensive experience managing development teams.
Nick Ravanbakhsh. Outreach & Content Development
Nick has years of experience managing / consulting tech projects. He has been active in the blockchain space since 2015 and founded his first crypto project in 2017. He has run multiple startups and has been an entrepreneur for his entire career. He represented the University of Houston at several business plan competitions across the US, where he achieved national recognition for various awards he won. Nick currently supports himself as an Airbnb property manager, where he passively generates $250k+/ yearly revenue through a portfolio of vacation rentals.
Dylan Senter. Marketing & Business Development
Dylan is a lifelong entrepreneur who has specialized in ecommerce and cryptocurrency based companies. He has been active in the crypto space since 2014 and has spoken on multiple panels at different crypto conferences throughout the US and across the world. Dylan has consulted for over 50 clients across different ecommerce, blockchain, and technology projects. He currently runs an ecommerce store with over $1m in annual sales. Dylan uses his extensive online product marketing experience to plan and carry out Base Protocol marketing efforts.
Based McGee. Head of Development — Solidity
McGee is an experienced full-stack developer and devops engineer, responsible for Base Protocol’s infrastructure, security, and decentralized application user experience. His 10 years of experience in software engineering have led him to work with projects in many fields from finance to adtech. McGee has been working in the blockchain/decentralization space since the launch of Ethereum.
Experiences in Crypto
Collectively, this team has been active in the cryptocurrency space since 2013. In that time, we’ve had the opportunity to work on several blockchain projects in development, consulting, and advisory roles. One project Dylan, Nick, and Chris worked on was Spectiv (SIG) — a decentralized application that enables users to create ad campaigns on a marketplace where bounty hunters can promote ad content for rewards, administered via smart contract. The platform is called the Signal Marketplace and its first adopter was Spectiv VR, a virtual reality streaming platform.
We launched the project in late 2017 and ended it in early 2020. As you might be aware, the crypto markets endured a jarring downfall over that time. Many projects — even those who followed through on developments, built functional products, and maintained positive community sentiment — didn’t survive that downfall. Spectiv was one of those projects.
We and many members of the retired Spectiv community reflect fondly on the project. We built an innovative decentralized ad platform, made major industry partnerships, and maintained a spirited community culture over its lifespan. We also set an unprecedented standard for transparency — for example, by publicizing all organization expenditures and tax documents. Although Spectiv was on the tram lines to an industry collapse, the project was conducted with grace, excellence, and honesty. No Spectiv founder ever sold any team tokens at any point in the project’s existence.
As markets took a turn for the worse, we did everything we could to weather the storm. We downsized the team, switched to remote working, cut out all noncritical expenses, and Nick/Dylan did not take a salary at any point from 2018–2020. As time went by and markets held low, we foresaw that reserves wouldn’t be able to support hosting/development costs much longer, and that it wasn’t prudent for us to continue expending capital to maintain a sinking ship. We elected to refund all remaining ETH holdings to token buyers. Without compensating ourselves, we refunded all of ~1000 ETH in January of 2020.
In short, we’ve managed projects through favorable and adverse conditions — but we have always held ourselves to the highest standard of integrity no matter the circumstances. This standard has applied for everything we’ve done and applies now for the Base Protocol. We felt it was important to share this so token purchasers have the most complete, transparent information we can make available. We also hope it demonstrates our team’s past experience and virtues in launching a new token project.
Expenditures and Refund Details
Here are some resources to substantiate everything:
12/18/19 Medium Article: Refund Announcement & Form
02/15/19 Medium Article: See Expenses Section
Etherscan link that shows all of the ETH refunds. The process started with a 1,089 Ether deposit to Kraken on 12/17/19. Following this deposit, you’ll see almost 120 refund transactions — some to individual buyers and some to syndicates.
Etherscan link that shows all of the token returns.
We’ve added this section as a response to accusations that our account of these events is false or that the team “stole funds.” This is the furthest thing from the truth. The team publicized expenditures, forfeited salaries and issued refunds. In reality, this is a testament to the team’s integrity.
You’ll also notice a couple small BASE transactions on the first address — that’s just Dylan trading. Remember, team tokens are locked for a year then vested. If we we want exposure, we have to buy on the market like everyone else.
Connecting Team, Technology, & Funding
BASE founders don’t stand to benefit very much in the short-term; our incentives are set up for long-term adoption. Founder tokens are locked up for 12 months, and then vested linearly over 12 months following the lock up. As the Base Protocol network grows, supply expansions occur, and a fraction of those expansions is minted and issued to the Base Ecosystem Pool (see whitepaper; section 4.3). This means BASE development is only capitalized as new adoption occurs. This is how long-term BASE developments are supported — if the protocol achieves traction, we will have proportionately sufficient reserves to build on it. To put it simply, we only win when the protocol wins.
Summation
This is the Base Protocol team. We bring extensive crypto experience to the project and will always prioritize responsibility, transparency, and community first. Although we would like to shift attention away from the team in the future, we believe going public is what’s best for the community at launch.
If you have any questions for the team, you can reach out to us directly through the BASE Discord.
