From PoolTogether to Axie Infinity
PoolTogether Community Interview #9: AndyKaufman, PT Governance
Hello Everyone,
Welcome to the latest PoolTogether Community Interview!
First of all, we are delighted to have the Spanish language PoolTogether Community Substack relaunched with an upcoming Spanish language version of The Richard Show!
Today we have an interview with one of the most active PT Community members - AndyKaufman. We will also learn about his involvement with Axie Infinity.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Describe yourself in a few words/facts:
I've always been an entrepreneur to some degree, this includes both minor success and failings. Crypto has been one of those minor successes. PoolTogether was a project that I stumbled on by chance and then dove into fully. The extremely welcoming community & desire to improve together is what has kept me around!
How long have you been into crypto?
I first dipped my toes into the water in early 2017 when learning about Ethereum from a friend. It was a wild ride and there was a lot to be learned.
Do you want to tell us about the main lessons you have learned since then?
First have an exit strategy for every token, even if it's very loose & has small target amounts (10%, 25% etc). You don't expect $27 in a meme token to turn into a lot more, what's worse is when you don't sell and it's back to normal!
Do not just focus on profits & tokens, learn from others and build strong friendships. I greatly cherish the life experiences and insights friends in this space have given me.
What was your best crypto moment?
When onboarding one of my Axie Infinity scholars. At first this person was an extreme hassle to explain anything to, the language barrier, doing all the things wrong... I remained patient though and since then they've secretly become one of my favorite scholars because of their personality, ambition & courtesy. Making a direct impact on people’s lives through playing a video game still baffles me.
Please tell us more about how you got into Axie Infinity, why you went deep and a bit about your involvement with scholars
So funnily enough, I actually got into Axie Infinity through PoolTogether in a convoluted way! I was simply browsing through some high deposit wallets on V3 (since everything is on chain & public) about a year + some months ago. My thinking was:
"If they have $1m+ deposited in PT, what else are they involved in"?
In this high deposit wallet was an ERC-20 token called "Smooth Love Potion". It caught my interest and that's how I found Axie Infinity! I saw the potential for a quality Play to Earn (P2E) game with an already existing following & passive income. I used funds from an airdrop at the time to purchase a few teams to test out the scholar program with.
I believe I started with about 3 teams, then 6,9 and so on. At first it was a rather simple & easy thing to manage. Axies were cheap, rewards were plentiful & there wasn't as much competition in PVP. As the Axie rewards changed with a 50% SLP reduction in Adventure (PVE), PVP becoming more competitive, rewarding and changes in team meta constantly things got more in depth.
More scholars meant more support on my end, communication, adjusting of team rosters, breeding, record keeping and more! I find being a scholarship manager very rewarding but it's not just passive income. There's a lot of work involved from both myself and the dedicated scholars that make it possible. Thank you to the loyal scholars of Andys Axie Co. 🙂
Do you see any new projects coming up in this area which could also be big?
There's too many. That can be a good thing but I see so many new P2E games popping up it's really hard to keep up & research appropriately. One in particular that I'm involved in and keeping a close eye on is called Infinity Skies. It is focused on a rogue like type of quests for rewards that are used to decorate your castle competively for tokens & rare prizes. There's a heavy focus on social aspects.
And your biggest fail?
Not selling a meme token for somewhat life changing profit before it crashed! I thought "just another 25% pump and I'm done"
Bonfire was the name... It was literally the first meme token I threw money at on BSC. $27 about is what I threw in during the first hour of launch. I took some worthy profits but not nearly enough. Word of advice: if you are refreshing your portfolio and price non-stop it's time to sell.
How did you find out about PoolTogether?
I want to say I first read about it in the very informative daily discussions of r/ethfinance. The concept just makes sense and was a real world example of how DeFi can and will reshape our financial system.
What made you stick around?
The community. The first token I followed had a great community but the team ultimately sold off their entire token supply to a shady 3rd party and that community died overnight. PoolTogether’s community in contrast has been extremely welcoming, open minded and down right wholesome!
How are you involved in the community? Tell us about it.
Beyond trying to onboard anyone who has a mild interest in DeFi or just hasn't used PoolTogether yet I enjoy helping out in discord. Recently I have not been as active but the report scams channel is where I try to pay most attention to!
Governance is where I was most active at the start but more recently some of the proposals are out of my expertise. I also served on the PoolGrants committee as a reviewer but recently stepped down to give a new set of community members the opportunity to contribute.
How were you involved in PoolTogether Governance?
When I first joined there was some minor friction for users to vote using POOL on chain everytime due to gas fees (how spoiled we were back then). Being excited to be there at the creation of a DAO I offered to pay half the gas fees for people to delegate their tokens to ANY delegate, I did not ask for delegations to me!
I just wanted to get the ball rolling. I was lightly involved in several votes & discussions but one of the most active roles was on PTIP-8. Gabor had a great idea for having NFTs be part of PT experience and I helped push the idea forward.
As things have gotten more technical with PTIPs & discussions I might not respond as much directly but I assure you I am lurking, reading & learning when I can!
What did you do there and what were your biggest achievements or things looking back you are most proud of?
The most exciting thing for me was when "JD" decided to delegate their POOL votes to me at the time! I was still brand new but was welcomed right away. PTIP-8 although it had some flaws was definitely an exciting project to be involved in and make happen!
I'm sure there's a lot more but projects & time are starting to blur together. Can we believe it's been almost 10 months since the launch of POOL?
Would you recommend PoolTogether to others? How would you describe it to them?
I not only would but I do frequently! I describe it as a prize savings account similar to premium bonds in the UK. You save money with a chance to win more and unlike traditional lotteries (which this isn't 😉 ) you don't lose your deposit.
We hope you have enjoyed today’s excellent Community Interview. Please be sure to join the PoolTogether Community Call on our official Discord at 2.45pm EST.
We will also be publishing the latest PoolTogether Community Newsletter on Sunday so please look out for that.