The dillboard - community storyboard

#PickleChallenge
#1

I am starting this post to bring everyone some light reading on some of the most vocal community members in Pickle Finance discord and forums. I think it’s really important for a project that wants to transition to a DAO to know its community, especially the members that deeply care, contribute continuously, provide constructive feedback and help this budding ecosystem grow. I hope this thread I start will provide some great insights/learnings/feedback to learn about these members and also a great place to have some history of Pickle stored!!

Again in no particular order, I will ping some names (the maximum I can for this post) and would really appreciate if you could share your story here. I am sure I have missed a few names here and would ask the contributors to ping others that I may have missed). This is just an experiment to have some fun with other serious business we do as a project. Participation and information is totally voluntary and if you DM me on discord, I will remove relevant pings.

To keep the thread clean I would appreciate if everyone would please:

  • Provide the info after copy + past the questions and then answer underneath.
  • Make your own bio and share in an other creative way!
  • If community likes any of the post please press the <3 button.

Questions:

  1. Tell us a bit about yourself. How you got involved in crypto. First crypto project. First DEFI project. How did you find Pickle Finance and what really got you interested in Pickle?
  2. Would you call yourself a shrimp, shark or a whale pickle holder? This I guess is to just give others that read the story a way to relate to your narrative. (Again only for fun - If this is something you would rather skip please do)
  3. What do you think Pickle as a project does different to others in the DEFI space especially competitors? Are you involved in any other competitor projects and what do you see as Pickles strengths and weakness?
  4. Where do you see Pickle in the next 3-6 months. Do you have a longer view of this project?
  5. How do you think the current governance process is going? Have you been involved with all the core PIPs? Tell us about a PIP that was the most controversial to you and what your position was? Also suggest some improvements for governance that may get more of the community involved.
  6. What is a recent exciting discussion that you had with someone else in the community and give us a bit of gist.
  7. What is your motivation to stick around with Pickle? How long have you been involved with a crypto project before? How long do you see yourself sticking around with Pickle.
  8. In your view as a vocal community member, what do you see Pickle needs to do to get from where we are to something like being the defacto project that everyone lands on looking for yield!
  9. Give us some fun info or anything else you would like to add to this thread!

Here are the first Pings: Scotty, 0xBoxer, leekuanjew, @chimaera, brinosaurus_rex, yyctrader, @Peachy, Mah_Dills, John_Lilic, pickleme

**EDIT 01/11/20 - Thanks so much for everyone that took the time to reply to this post. It’s a really cool dill to read these bios. Added new Pings. Also if you think there is too many questions, pick the ones that you feel are most relevant and add anything else that you like. Have fun writing!!

Would love to see the DEV TEAM participate. Are you game? Keep your anonymity but give us a story to read!! Larry_Cucumber 0xpenguin BigBrainBriner

Updated Pings 1: pipickle, Tomato_Juxx, jintao, @dafacto ***

**EDIT 03/11/20 Really happy to see others joining in. Calling all active picklers to contribute to this thread, please go ahead and add a bio, the questions above are now only a cue. Use your own style like Dr.Eggplant or masanobu.

Updated Pings 2: @2x1q7f9, @bit1, jjdubs, Gabriel, GiantPickle, IrrI @Raaaababa **

**EDIT 11/11/20 Now that we are past PIP-17, I would like to revive this thread. Pinging again to see if there is any more interest to share stories. Got to say it has been incredible though to read about the diversity of the community.
Updated Pings 3: @2weiX @dark @UniquePresident @jrrrrrr
**

EDIT 19/11/20 Cleaned up the Original Post to remove references to Pickle Challenge. Will keep the thread open and ping any interesting new comers I see in discord

9 Likes
#2

This was way to many questions, I chose a few in which I feel I have something to say.

Tell us a bit about yourself. How you got involved in crypto. First crypto project. First DEFI project. How did you find Pickle Finance and what really got you interested in Pickle?

I have been around the space as an active participant for 3 month or so only, as an Investor since around early 2017.
I was strolling around Crypto Twitter one evening and @scoopytrooples called Pickle as a good trade/Investment, so I did my research and jumped in. This was followed by some very confusing days with vitalik discussing quadratic voting, some Idiots starting votes to cap emission, general confusion in the community and so on. What impressed me during these times was always the professionalism of mods and devs and the overall vibe of the community, so I decided this was not to be a trade, but rather an investment.

I am not heavily involved with other projects at the moment, but can still draw some conclusions from what I saw in the past.
The communication of this project is just really really good. I like that the Devs are discussing with us “investors/users” on an even level and you always feel heard and valued. Nothing get’s swept under the rug or dismissed, if you got any honest questions you will get an honest answer. There is transparency in every decision and every level of the protocol, as it should be in DeFi.
This feels like it was truly set up to be a DAO and wants to be a DAO instead of just calling something a DAO that is not DAO because DAO is a buzzword.

Also this doesn’t seem to be a get-rich-quick scheme for anyone, we are collectively building systems of value which are designed to offer WIN-WIN situations to users, investors, creator, devs, contributors and whatever other stakeholder you can imagine in DeFi. Nobody here is trying to screw someone else over and everybody hopefully will hopefully profit in the end.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the range of people we are attracting. The diversity in our community is pretty unique IMO. We seem to have people from all over the world, in all age ranges, from loads of different backgrounds which are all offering advice to our humble generals and make all of this possible.

In short: I think the honesty, transparency, moral aspects, diversity of community and the humble attitude of our Pickle generals are all very strong core aspects of this community and make me bullish for the future.
Not to dismiss the operations the devs are running here, they are obviously excellent from what I can judge and without them we would all not be here, but that’s not really my area of expertise.

I was tired of being an investor and just being subject to external forces and not being given a voice or platform in other projects and found my home here.

When I started working on the Dune Dashboards I told my crypto friends “I am personally gonna make sure that this project reaches 100$/Pickle.”
While this obviously is quite an overstatement of my impact, I think it portrays my intentions of joining the project pretty well. I am doing this to create value for the project because I want this to succeed for monetary reasons, but also because it has turned out to be super rewarding work in which I have learnt a lot about the space in which I want to work in full time one day.

Im think everything is being worked on or at least noticed somewhere in the hivemind that our community is and think that if the Devs and we as a Community do our jobs like we have done so far we are on a good trajectory to get there.

THE FUTURE OF FINANCE IS GREEN

6 Likes
#3

Hi there… Received your ping on discord.

I discovered Pickle when it first came out. I liked the simplicity of the whitepaper and found it entertaining and love how it also had a mission on stabilizing stable coins, although we diverged from that path. Just really love the communication from the team and I like that we’re all working together toward a common goal having never met each other personally. Feel PICKLE is the true DAO from 2016 coming to life.

As for myself I am very active in DeFi. I am an early Bitcoiner and ETH fellow and perhaps I’m having a little too much fun tweeting about Pickle. I have a fairly large account that many of you likely know me from, but I use this to continue the anonymous nature of the Pickle Community. I genuinely don’t know who the team is but I do know a few of the community members. Just really love the governance process and what everyone is doing. And I’m glad to contribute with my memes and tweets. I’m having alot of fun! Also I work full time in crypto.

6 Likes
#4

@projectuwb thanks for the AMA :rofl:.

Kidding aside, this is a great initiative. Getting to know any blockchain community really sets the stage for anybody to clearly assess the value of what Elon Musk would describe as a “giant cybernetic collective”, and so avoid decisions based on pure sentiment or the boom-and-bust cycles that are influenced by so many external factors. I get involved in any community I am committing to long-term in order to harness the “animal spirits” of the markets instead of being crushed by them.

My answers

  1. my history in Crypto in general, Pickle in particular:
  • I have a lifelong passion for both economics and software. I have studied both subjects in university and beyond. I first got to hear about Bitcoin through the economic press, after the widespread reporting of the Mt. Gox hack. I spent considerable time studying the asset and its volatility and decided to acquire my first bitcoins in 2016, in order to collect winnings from betting in the Brexit and U.S. presidential elections (which a friend placed for me in countries where such things are legal). I haven’t looked back since.
  • DeFi – IRL I work at a Crypto startup. I handle Growth, which intersects product management, UX, frontend, analytics & data science, and both technical and traditional approaches to digital marketing. From my work, I became familiar with Compound and with it the rest of DeFi and community-governed tokens. My first in the money bet, however, was on Curve. Pickle became my third bet after yEarn.
  • The original mission of Pickle interested me, together with the well-thought-of “farmernomics”. One of yEarn’s omissions, in my opinion, had been to create a token that would struggle with liquidity in its early stages.
  1. the size of my Pickle bags
  • from those that vote, I can see I am roughly at the median. I’d say that makes me some sort of tuna. I’ve also got other non-voting bags but 90% of my stuff is in the death pool.
  1. Pickle vs the competition
  • I have been involved in yEarn and have looked at Harvest at arms-length.
    • unlike yEarn, we take care of the PICKLE liquidity, that makes our rewards ecosystem stronger. Another thing we do that’s positive is the core team doesn’t have a public figure like André who has other interests/projects and talks publicly about his desire to quit due to pressure. Things we can learn from yEarn are (i) that they have already started expanding their team; (ii) for all his “humanness”, Andre is also a very daring dev, willing to be at the forefront of DeFi architecture; and (iii) smashing it on Twitter and podcasting with other projects.
    • unlike Harvest, in Pickle there’s a strong resistance to “ponzinomics” / the appearance of “ponzinomics”. One thing we could learn from Harvest is their bravery in introducing a performance fee and linking it to the FARM holders (which we are about to also do, improved).
  1. Pickle in 3–6 months
  • I see us getting to maturity as a project. That means, using assets like the DevFund to assemble a core team capable of shipping every week, constantly improving the UX, and riding the momentum with novel strategies and marketing blitz.
  • I see us maturing as a community. That means, more consensus and faster governance iterations. Moving on bigger issues more often and not letting the low-hanging fruit be a distraction or source of controversy. That requires us to be on the same page as far as rationale and narrative.
  • I see us revisiting our original mission. We’ve barely touched the surface of what can be done to bring stablecoins on-peg. The stablecoin market is really massive and we only captured a small sliver. As our strategies improve and we get more bandwidth, elastic farming has a chance to creep bag as one of the foundational value propositions in the protocol.
  1. state of Pickle governance
  • I’d say the governance process is going extremely well. Not to say I haven’t had frustrations and disagreements (more on that below). However for this early-stage in the process are doing a lot better than many other projects in DeFi. With UNI a shitshow, SUSHI a soap opera, and CRV a bureaucratic mess – I say we are a governance unicorn a the moment.
  • I’d followed closely and voted on all PIPs that had been in since I got involved (around PIP-4). The most controversial for me has been PIP–15. As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of the Smart Treasury. The RFC for the Smart Treasury came a lot earlier than Cap & Rewards and I was not too happy to think the Smart Treasury wouldn’t be used as an automatic buyback machine with the excess being given to stakers. I have elaborated as best as possible why this wasn’t economically the best outcome possible. However, my concerns have been abated as we are wrapping up the Smart Treasury discussion and I believe it will be approved and we will proceed to a smooth trial. Once the benefits are more apparent, we will likely be able to reform the staking mechanism. This is all a part of maturing governance.
  • I’d say in 3–6 months we shall see some protocol politicians coming out and holding some elections. Again, maturity as a community.
  1. Exciting discussions on community
  • Well, for me, the Smart Treasury discussion has been the most exciting. Since you have access to the whole discussion, I’d focus on the sentiment gist as appreciated by me. From going to hostility to basically a positive “let’s try this” attitude, I can say this community has the core ingredient for success which is being open to new ideas and the capacity to come with solutions, compromise on a design, and implement. Without these things, one can never reach product-market fit, which is how I earn my keep IRL. @0xBoxer @Mah_Dills @brinosaurus_rex @chimaera and @yyctrader have all shown these qualities whether at the start they were either unenthusiastic, on-the-fence, opposed, curious, or supportive. Most impressively, @BigBrainBriner has also shown top leadership qualities by providing a lot of bandwidth and pushing the issue towards an implementable solution or compromise. These are exceptional qualities in a Dev and I manage both Devs and non-Devs on a product team for a living.
  1. Permanence in Pickle et al
  • I feel the community is in the right direction and find myself being of value here.
  • Besides my own startup for the past year, I have not been involved with a protocol in this fashion before. I tried Polkadot as an ambassador, but it wasn’t this exciting so I lost interest after about a month.
  • I quote Warren Buffett as my preferred time for holding an asset is also forever.
  1. What Pickle needs to become DeFi yield king
  • This isn’t a single factor thing, but I would say we need to stay highly engaged as a community in order to iterate and steer the protocol in that direction. Overall, the most important implementations significantly improve an aspect of the value cycle.
  1. Fun Fact

IRL I’ve been given the nickname “Wiki”. Besides history, I am big into philosophy, politics, and economics. I enjoy a good, healthy debate, and try to apply a dose of skepticism and contrarianism to many of my own positions.

5 Likes
[PIP-22 Candidate Submission] leekuanjew
#5

1. Tell us a bit about yourself. How you got involved in crypto. First crypto project. First DEFI project. How did you find Pickle Finance and what really got you interested in Pickle?

I was studying for a masters in behavioral economics when I stumbled upon ETH on coinbase in Febuary 2017 - I got hooked and set up a crypto community on discord to have a place I could help onboard friends and freinds of friends. I started advertising it on /ethtrader and it blew up. Ever-since I’ve been invested emotionally and financially - really interested in human nature and psychology so I’ve spent a lot of my time trying to figure out why most people in crypto are not rational at all like mainstream economics assumes…

Pickle is my first real defi project involvement. I was trading defi before, but pickle was the first project I entered early enough to really watch it develop which is something I love to watch in any project.

3. What do you think Pickle as a project does different to others in the DEFI space especially competitors? Are you involved in any other competitor projects and what do you see as Pickles strengths and weakness?

I’d say community and dev team combo, but I am totally being bias!

4. Where do you see Pickle in the next 3-6 months. Do you have a longer view of this project?

Profitable, united and resilient. I can see us being one of the biggest protocols when defi really starts to establish itself - but it will be a hard and bumpy road. We need to keep a good community spirit, and a place people feel that they are able to talk freely without someone trying to belittle or undermine their points etc - if the community starts to become toxic it will be a bad sign.

5. How do you think the current governance process is going? Have you been involved with all the core PIPs? Tell us about a PIP that was the most controversial to you and what your position was? Also suggest some improvements for governance that may get more of the community involved.

It’s going as well as we can hope it to go, we need to take things slow when it comes to becoming a fully fledged DAO so I am kinda happy with how it is right now. I don’t have a strong opinion on PIPs, I just want the community to have the right to vote for whatever they want!

6. What is a recent exciting discussion that you had with someone else in the community and give us a bit of gist.

Well my interests are psychology and behavior so anything to do with community is what I love to discuss, but I’ve got a very bad memory for details! But if anyone else wants to talk about this kinda stuff, please DM me!

7. What is your motivation to stick around with Pickle? How long have you been involved with a crypto project before? How long do you see yourself sticking around with Pickle.

I am motivated by being part of something bigger than myself in crypto terms, I think collectively we have a great chance of being a successful DAO but it really depends on the community. Communities can change very quickly when new members join, or old members become increasingly vocal, we need a balance of different opinions and views and not an echochamber, or worse, a chat which is dominated by egotistical chatter. We really need to see ourselves as a cog in a machine, and realize to make this work, we must all see ourselves as equals working towards the same goal. If we can’t be balanced and mature as a community, that’s when I’ll leave because it’ll mean we’re destined to fail.

8. In your view as a vocal community member, what do you see Pickle needs to do to get from where we are to something like being the defacto project that everyone lands on looking for yield!

We just need to continue to build trust and mature as a project, I guess, because we are increasingly trusted, we will be increasingly used - which will become a self-fulfilling prophecy!

9. Give us some fun info or anything else you would like to add to this thread!

Please let’s keep this community friendly, close-knit, without cliques and ego.

4 Likes
#6

Surprised I got pinged here but I guess I’ve been part of the forum for awhile. I preface this with some people may not like what I have to say but these are my honest thoughts.

The first crypto project I got involved in was Bitcoin in 2012. Unfortunately I’ve sold or traded too early too many times. I actually avoided DeFi but finally jumped into Yearn in July because the fundamentals seemed better than most DeFi projects. I was in YFI only but saw Pickle and the fact that it was based on Yearn’s code attracted me so I began farming a bit. I traded the YFI I had left for Pickle after the EMN stuff and traded some BTC I had also.

I am definitely Vladimir Club in Pickle. Maybe shark/dolphin? It’s difficult to gauge because the etherscan holders doesn’t include those staking or farming.

I don’t think Pickle does anything immensely different from other DeFi projects. I think the Devs are the life-blood of Pickle and are what separate it from other projects. I think one Dev is a former Google engineer but that’s just my guess based on some things I’ve seen. Either way these folks are smart and so far honest which keeps me around. I am not in any other DeFi projects currently. The only weakness I see with Pickle is the rewards structure. I think it would have been better to build a solid treasury (maybe higher than any other project) vs handing out short term funds.

I know many folks will hate me for saying this but I see Pickle staying in its current range for the next 3 to 6 months assuming there are no hacks/exploits. I do have a longer view of this project assuming the Devs and community can keep coming up with the great ideas they have had so far.

Great question. Personally I think the community will support anything the Devs come up with. Even if they don’t have a good reason. This isn’t necessarily bad but it isn’t good either. Voting tends to only have two options which severely limits scope. It’s usually either 1. Dev idea or 2. Do nothing. Again this isn’t bad as it gets things done, but for example, PIP16, why don’t we have a different fee structure option? How was 27.5% decided on? What I’ve also encountered is that most folks aren’t open to changing PIPs once they have been passed (See discussion on changing emissions). Which is why it is troubling to only have 2 options and pass these relatively fast if the community is going to have the mindset that these shouldn’t be changed after.

The motivation to stick around comes from the great APY. Unfortunately the low price has led to IL but long term I think the project should be fine. Also it’s interesting to provide some input in building something that may be significant.

I think we really need to consider adjusting emissions. I still don’t see the benefit of reducing by 10% versus any other percentage and the current amount of Pickles being dumped on the market continues to keep price down. But with the anticipated change to a performance fee and the current rewards - that may be a big enough catalyst to drive Pickle demand.

I’m actually a medical researcher by trade. A lot of what I do consists of finding trends in data which has been helpful for analyzing markets.

3 Likes
#7

I was born in a Whole Foods when a CIA experiment went wrong. I was the only nightshade in my shipment to gain sentience. Now I spend my days learning how to be human and arguing over withdrawal fees.

2 Likes
#9

I have no memories before I gained sentience. The CIA quickly scooped me up as the retial Whole Foods shoppers couldn’t mentally handle a talking Eggplant.

The next few years were full of experiments where my handlers taught me about consensus based algorithams and decentralized finance. The CIA had a vision for what they called a global future with no boundaries or countries, I tried to tell them I was just an Eggplant, but they didn’t listen.

The next few years were hell. I became jaded and reclusive. Once the novelty of a talking eggplant wore off, they put me in a produce protection program and shipped me from Langley.

These days I spend my time helping other vegetables achieve higher consciousness through participation on the CIA’s PICKLE PROJECT.

That’s my story. I am here to help.

3 Likes
#11

Hi everyone, @projectuwb thanks for the ping. It’s been a pleasure to hang out here and shill my ideas.

I’ve been involved on the sidelines for a few years, mostly passively - reading, commenting on reddit, making minor contributions here and there. Pickle is the first project where I’ve engaged with the community to any greater extent. I guess the community seemed pretty sane and thoughtful, which isn’t always the case. I liked no-bullshit approach of the pico-paper and simplicity of the mechanics (too many projects over-complicate things too early IMO).

Started as a shrimp, but having grown a little fatter in the suicide pool, I guess that makes me a Lobster?

This will depend largely on defi as a whole. I think that talk of a longer defi winter is overblown - defi will bounce back quicker than crypto did since it has real non-speculative utility already. It will just bounce back more gently and to more realistic valuations (don’t quote me on this though). The value of cryptocurrencies is much more speculative and network-dependent. Defi depends solely on how much yield it can generate, and how reliably.

I think governance is mostly working effectively, there’s a good compromise between community input and centralised execution by a trusted committee. My time is limited due to professional and family commitments so I can’t follow every topic, but I try to cast my vote on all PIPs. Topics that interest me most are those related to tokenomics and incentive design, I find it really fascinating and of course critical for long-term success. However I try to only add my voice when I think I have something valuable to add. PIP-8 seemed controversial to me at the time - it combined multiple major changes in a single yes-no vote. I still think it could have been handled better than it was, but the project was still very young and moving quickly. As for improvements, I think it’s important to include some of the non-suicide pool holders in governance in some way, but this needs to be thought through carefully. And better to have a small but committed core community than a huge and passive one.

Tbh my time is limited so my contributions will be sporadic but I believe in the project enough to keep holding and staking, that alone will keep me engaged.

I think Pickle is already at the point where it can be considered as an altcoin to Yearn’s bitcoin. However the comparison with cryptocurrencies is misleading: in the defi space the network effects are much weaker, yields rule all. Hence, Yearn’s crown is not unassailable, but there is also no silver bullet: there will always be other projects competing. Pickle has built a great foundation - strong community, talented and principled devs. It will be a hard grind, but I think the future is bright (green).

:t_rex:

4 Likes
#12

Thanks for the ping! I was surprised to be quoted, because I think I am insignificant. I have no expertise in the field, I learn like a lot little by little.

- 1. Tell us a bit about yourself. How you got involved in crypto. First crypto project. First DEFI project. How did you find Pickle Finance and what really got you interested in Pickle?

I got into crypto late, 2 years ago. It was the crypto bubble and the ICOs that made me interested in it, and lose some coins lol.
The first project that I liked was P3D and Fomo3D, where I recovered my losses. I immediately subscribe to the idea of ​​a universal income. Since the Tron episode and the devs disappeared at the beginning of this year, I gave up …
I find myself not having taken part in it earlier since I spend a lot of time on my computer!
I also have some programming and computer technical analysis experience ^^, but that was 20 years ago.

I found pickle.finance thanks to the P3D community (@Gorby, @Scoopy Troople @Big Dick Bandit @Zirs …).
I found this community spirit here, with a strong participation of the devs in the discord. The project seems solid and “simple” to me at the same time, no pretension or animosity towards other protocols. I admit to appreciating the yields offered and the connectivity created with platforms like Cure, Uniswap, Compound …

- 2. Would you call yourself a shrimp, shark or a whale pickle holder? This I guess is to just give others that read the story a way to relate to your narrative. (Again only for fun - If this is something you would rather skip please do)

I am totally a shrimp !

- 3. What do you think Pickle as a project does different to others in the DEFI space especially competitors? Are you involved in any other competitor projects and what do you see as Pickles strengths and weakness?

The Pickle project seems to me to be more “secure” and innovative in its approach. He knows how to create bonds of trust with the Defi universe and reinforces his credibility at each stage of its development. He becomes a benchmark for the quality of his work.
If I had to point out one weakness, I would say the UI could be more self-explanatory and detailed. But this project is too young for this type of criticism.
The other projects I am involved in are Curve, Yearn, Compound, Stabilize, DPI and Rune mainly.

- 4. Where do you see Pickle in the next 3-6 months. Do you have a longer view of this project?

I think Pickle will continue to strengthen its image and its rigor.
The use of the protocol will be facilitated for the neophytes. New investment opportunities with different levels of risk. New partners and better referencing (CEX, DefiPulse, specialized communities, etc.)
I’m bullish for the next 4 years !

- 5. How do you think the current governance process is going? Have you been involved with all the core PIPs? Tell us about a PIP that was the most controversial to you and what your position was? Also suggest some improvements for governance that may get more of the community involved.

I find it rather well organized.
I’ve been with Pickle since September 20th, missed a few PIPs but am happy to take part today.
For me the most controversial PIP was about removing withdrawal fees. Although I fully understand that this is necessary, I found the atmosphere of discussion very agitated and sometimes aggressive on the part of some members.
I would like members wishing to propose new ideas to be more assiduous in their approach and their writing. It is important to provide as much detail as possible in the pros / cons, quantified extrapolations, anticipation and respect for the community.

The following questions seem redundant to me …

I don’t know if my answers are relevant, in any case I enjoy getting involved in the project!

I’m just a simple farmer

4 Likes
#13

Thanks for the mention. I won’t do the full bio as I think there are people far more deserving of the attention. It’s great to have the topic of governance discussed though.

I think it’s going well, and (at these early stages) I’m comfortable with the devs carrying the responsibility for final protocol critical decisions.

There are other areas where I think the community could have more influence in decision making though. Otherwise we risk demotivating people who have valuable input but are overlooked.

2 Likes
#14

Thanks for the ping! @projectuwb
Its fascinating to see the various paths people took to get here :slight_smile:
Going to try and keep this one short…

Engineer by training, former banker, now trader/PM. First got into crypto in 2017…bought ETH around 500 CAD and rode it up to 1500. Sold and proceeded to give it all back by putting it into various $hitcoins…got interested again in early 2020 looking at the yields on stablecoins…Pickle is my first foray into DeFi.

I’d say I alternate between shrimp and shark…usually one of the top 20 voters

Top notch dev team that actually listens to the community. All voices are heard, and that’s extremely rare imo. Also, a focus on safety and stability rather than a quick pump.

Please refer to Wall of Text v1

Definitely involved…perhaps too much! To me, the withdrawal fee issue was one of the most controversial as I felt that we perhaps moved too quickly. I think we can definitely improve the level of engagement in governance…giving stakers voting rights is an essential next step and integration of Discord polls in the governance process should give us a better understanding of the community’s views.

The team and community…I see myself being around for a long time. $500 PICKLE or bust!

Marketing, marketing and more marketing :slight_smile:
We’ve made some good progress with the ongoing contest and a little more life in our Twitter game…but we need more.
Final audits are nearly complete and we should hopefully have a DeFiPulse listing soon :crossed_fingers:

In PICKLE We Trust

4 Likes
#15
  1. Tell us a bit about yourself. How you got involved in crypto. First crypto project. First DEFI project. How did you find Pickle Finance and what really got you interested in Pickle?

I knew about crypto for a while but never really got super into it until recently. I remember checking Bitcoin’s price on Mt. Gox sometime during in college, and seeing that it was around $20. The concept sounded cool, but I was a college student without any discretionary cash so I never got into it.

A year or two later I ended up mining Dogecoin when it came out for funsies. Ended up selling those for super cheap and not really keeping up with crypto until the summer of 2017 when someone told me about Ethereum. Sounded a lot more interesting than Dogecoin. Ended up buying some and also trying to trade some altcoins during the year, but was really just a noob chasing whitepapers and pumps. The project I was most interested in at the time was probably Raiblocks / Nano (went through the Bitgrail fiasco). Found transferring my Bitcoin super limiting due to transaction times so it definitely felt one of the worthier projects to me at the time.

Fast forward through taking a break from the space after the crazy bull run ended, and I started getting interested in crypto in the summer of this year. It was crazy to me, there were actual useful things built on Ethereum now (ie DeFi)! A farcry from the ICO / vaporware days of 2017. Once I started getting into it again I couldn’t stop. The whole space is just so interesting. The problems being solved, the people, the memes. It really feels like the forefront in a ton of ways. When I started looking into what the interesting contemporary projects were, I found Synthetix. Super cool idea. Even cooler community. Read a few medium articles and I was sold that it was a solid project backed by a stellar team. Their Discord has a community of other passionate crypto-ers, and it was from there that I learned about Pickles.

I ended up joining the Pickle Discord moments before launch and being there for the start of it. What really got me interested with Pickles was the dev team at the time. They were extremely upfront on not to expect wild valuations for the token (valueless ser), and were all around very communicative and respectful to everyone in the Discord. The two-way communication that the team espoused made me confident in both the project and what the community felt like it could shape up to be. It felt extremely reassuring to both hear from the dev team what’s happening as well as feeling like I was heard when offering any inputs. The early discussions on changing Pickle’s inflation schedule were handled well by the community and team as a whole. That level of communication is what first made me realize that Pickle was something special, and the devs have since been consistently delivering, which has only reinforced how I felt.

  1. Would you call yourself a shrimp, shark or a whale pickle holder? This I guess is to just give others that read the story a way to relate to your narrative. (Again only for fun - If this is something you would rather skip please do)

I’d consider myself a dolphin, not as intimidating as a shark :shark:

  1. What do you think Pickle as a project does different to others in the DEFI space especially competitors? Are you involved in any other competitor projects and what do you see as Pickles strengths and weakness?

Really I think it’s what I mentioned before, the communication. For such a new / actively developed project, I’m not sure if I’ve seen one that quite reaches the level of the Pickle team’s communication / integration with the community.

I’m not currently involved in any other competitor projects in any significant capacity.

  1. Where do you see Pickle in the next 3-6 months. Do you have a longer view of this project?

Hard to say, 3 - 6 months is a long time in crypto / DeFi. I’m also not sure how long yield farming with such high yields will last, but I personally feel like the Pickle team would be able to adopt if needed.

Skipping 5 and 6 since I can’t think of good answers, I do try to participate when I can for the PIP’s but I’ve definitely been on the busier end recently.

  1. What is your motivation to stick around with Pickle? How long have you been involved with a crypto project before? How long do you see yourself sticking around with Pickle.

I’m motivated to stick around due to the team / community. Seems like one of the most solid teams in crypto. This is probably the first time I’ve been “involved” in a project more than just being just another Discord’er, and I imagine I’ll be around as long as the Pickle team / community keep it interesting. :slight_smile:

  1. In your view as a vocal community member, what do you see Pickle needs to do to get from where we are to something like being the defacto project that everyone lands on looking for yield!

Tough question, and admittedly I’m not sure. Unfortunately I have heard that some people are turned off from the Pickle name, although I personally find it endearing and don’t try to judge things just by how they look, so I wouldn’t necessarily want that to be changed. I think if the team keeps building, delivering, and proving that they can be innovators in this space, good things will come eventually. But markets are fickle, so who knows, haha.

  1. Give us some fun info or anything else you would like to add to this thread!

Thanks to all of you that contribute to this great community! Nothing else to add except hope you all have a great day :sun_with_face:

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#16
  1. Tell us a bit about yourself. How you got involved in crypto. First crypto project. First DEFI project. How did you find Pickle Finance and what really got you interested in Pickle?

  • As I am sure many did, I looked at Bitcoin through its early years as an interesting experiment. I think early 2012 initially, then again when Silkroad hit the headlines … but never found the urge to actually buy (the price fluctuated wildly back then). It was mid 2017 when I first invested any actual fiat … to buy XRP of all things. Sold it a short while later for a good profit and was already starting to get hooked as the late 2017 bullrun began. Like @Tippy I aped into Raiblocks around November 2017, saw my funds skyrocketing through December and into January as Nano came on the scene. Still remember that Christmas-NY period, waking up every single morning to double digit gains, was insane, quite the buzz. Then 2018 developed and the insanity waned … and of course being a noob I was sold by the whole HODL meme - last bought Nano around $34, held it most of the way down to ~$1. Ouch. After licking my wounds and learning what a ridiculous concept HODL is (seriously everyone, don’t blindly HODL anything), I started getting into small cap coins for a while - bought into Peepcoin and saw it soar as it became DAPs, had learned enough to make a hella profit before it dived again. Since then I have been involved in several other projects, investor, community, team, moderator. Some more successful than others but a great experience overall. I spent most of 2020 being skeptical about DEFI, only seriously starting to investigate around August … not so fun fact - my first Uniswap trade was September 2nd, so yeah I missed out on that windfall :expressionless:

  • DEFI journey in those short couple of months: SUSHISWAP - saw the Chef Nomi phase and debacle when he sold, got pissed off when the community voted to buy back Sushi with the $14m ETH … went to CREAM for a while, got pissed off there at the dictatorial approach and general lack of team connection … ended up in PICKLE and have stayed since.

  1. Would you call yourself a shrimp, shark or a whale pickle holder? This I guess is to just give others that read the story a way to relate to your narrative. (Again only for fun - If this is something you would rather skip please do)
  • Shrimpy Shark - I have enough invested in crypto/DEFI to care a lot about it, but not so much that my financial situation depends on it
  1. What do you think Pickle as a project does different to others in the DEFI space especially competitors? Are you involved in any other competitor projects and what do you see as Pickles strengths and weakness?
  • TEAM - what hooked me on Pickle. Many talk about the community, but that’s strong because of the team. I would love even more team interaction, particularly from the quieter two (:wink: ) but overall it’s great. Transparency, honesty, safety first approach
  • Strength and weakness both is the safety first approach. It means that yields aren’t always the best, strategies aren’t the most adventurous, but the track record speaks for itself in security terms.
  • I’d hope that Pickle can secure that niche and become a go-to for the slightly more safety-seeking investor, which a Stables/BTC/ETH approach lends itself to
  • Weakness is the community infighting/arguing which definitely puts off newcomers. Passion and tenacity are great but they need to be tempered sometimes for the overall vibe to feel good.
  1. Where do you see Pickle in the next 3-6 months. Do you have a longer view of this project?
  • Hard to see that far ahead, but I see a solid future for Pickle. Already many competitors have come and gone, but Pickle is steadily building and will be stronger in the future.
  1. How do you think the current governance process is going? Have you been involved with all the core PIPs? Tell us about a PIP that was the most controversial to you and what your position was? Also suggest some improvements for governance that may get more of the community involved.
  • I tend to have my say across most things - sometimes not to a huge effect because I’m not so involved I can argue the nitty gritty.
  • I would say controversial … withdrawal fees being removed when they were, rather than waiting for the end of Uniswap farming. The treasury would be 2x what it is now if that decision had waited a couple of weeks (I agree as I think most do that the move was right, just not the timing)
  • Giving Pickle Stakers voting powers is a must, hopefully soon …
  1. What is a recent exciting discussion that you had with someone else in the community and give us a bit of gist.
  • I am liking the discussion in #marketing right now with @Gabriel and @williambrealey - that energy will help propel Pickle to a wider audience.
  1. What is your motivation to stick around with Pickle? How long have you been involved with a crypto project before? How long do you see yourself sticking around with Pickle.
  • Always hard to see too far into the future, but I don’t see any reason I would move on from Pickle at this point. One of my other projects is past 2+ years involvement so I have stickiness for the right projects.
  1. In your view as a vocal community member, what do you see Pickle needs to do to get from where we are to something like being the defacto project that everyone lands on looking for yield!
  • Safe, solid yield. Doesn’t need to be triple digit APY%, but if we can get to a range of top tier strategies that have minimal to no risk, then Pickle will grow for sure.
  1. Give us some fun info or anything else you would like to add to this thread!
  • I HATE CUCUMBERS! Seriously can’t stand them, the smell, the taste … they overpower anything they are in (eg salads, sandwiches). Pickles are okay … I am growing to like them - IRL I mean, on burgers etc. But not my favourite food :wink:
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