Episode 24: Jesse | Aavegotchi - Financial Accessibility through Gaming
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Status
Timestamps
[01:26] Jessie Explains Aavegotchi and Aavegotchi DAO
[03:13] Jessie talks about the Aavegotchi DAO community.
[04:42] Jessie explains how open-source has evolved.
[06:17] Jessie explains the role of Aavegotchi in the metaverse.
[09:23] Jessie talks about the roadmap for Aavegotchi.
[13:01] Jessie talks about Aave Grants program and projects they have funded.
[14:32] Jessie describes building in the Gotchiverse.
Intro
Welcome to Crypto Sapiens, a show that hosts lively discussions with innovative web3 builders to help you learn about decentralized money systems, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Defi. The podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only, and it is not financial advice. Crypto Sapiens is presented in partnership with BanklesssDAO. A movement for pioneers seeking freedom from the limitations of the traditional financial system. BanklessDAO will help the world go bankless by creating user-friendly on-ramps for people to discover decentralized financial technologies through education, media, and culture.
[00:47] Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
Hello everyone and welcome back to Crypto Sapiens. Today we are chatting with Jesse Golden Cross Seminar of Aavegotchi DAO. This podcast was recorded during ETH Denver at a cafe outside the Art Hotel. We discuss Aavegotchi DAO being an accessible on ramp for crypto curious people and creating a rich user experience, including building the Gotchiverse.
We talk about the Aavegotchi DAO building with the primitives of the NFTs with products being built around them. Jesse also hints at several updates coming to the ecosystem in the future.
[01:26]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Avago is kind of designed to be very accessible to people who are crypto curious. And that was a big goal of ours from the very start, the inception of the idea. that's because everybody knows a tomagotchi, right? At least most of us do, especially our age. So it was like, all right, we wanna communicate smart contracts in ways to use them. In a way that is also, there's like a point of reference that we all recognize from the past. So it's like, Oh, Tomagotchi, you gotta take care of it.
It's a digital pet. We just took that and put it on chain. So Aavegotchi ‘s are a hundred percent on chain. They're kind of on that short list of NFTs. They're on that extreme end of the spectrum, where as long as that chain exists, those Aavegotchi ‘s are gonna exist, the artwork, everything. And so that was really important to us from a technical perspective. You are able to pet them. You don't feed them, but you pet them and their kinship scores this dynamic metadata that goes up and down. So you're right, it's something that I think someone who is not into crypto yet can totally get on a surface level. But then it also gets really interesting if you're interested in learning about, you know, some of these protocols and standards and things like staking. We have a staking mechanism that's relatively user friendly, so it's. People come in to Avegotchi DAO and they come out learning about all these different DeFi tools that are out there. That's one of the most satisfying aspects of Aavegotchi. It really has become this like user on ramp into web3.
[02:54]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
So what are some of the things that you've seen that Aavegotchi is doing that maybe that wasn't the intent? And has eventually maybe become part of the, the, the system, the process. That's basically the way that the community has used it. Is there something that Aavegotchi has kind of learned from their community that then it has implemented?
[03:13]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Absolutely. So the community is really at the center, everybody says that, right? But in our case, we really have attracted I'd say brain gain to the max in terms of there's solidity developers there coming in, indie game developers, brain surgeons that are just moonlighting and crypto, you know, and so we have an awesome Aavegotchi DAO. We started as a DAO with a kind of complex, unique twist on our teleos using a bonding curve. That attracted a certain type of user. I feel those passionate people that really are interested in what we can do with smart contracts. And the result is we have our core team at Pixel Craft, about 35 of us, but we also have the Aavegotchi DAO and people that have kind of proven themselves and risen to positions of leadership within the community.They have their own voices, their own projects. They're, they're building with the primitives of the aga NFTs. And we're getting other adapts and other products built around us now where we're kind of finally realizing where we wanted to go with Aavegotchi as a more of an open source, community owned NFT gaming protocol, and that's really what we want to get to.
And we're already there in so many ways, depending on what metrics you measure by. A project that has open source as the root of what they are, I think tend to do well.
[04:34]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
Why do you think that is and, and really how do you think that open source has evolved?
[04:42]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Ethereum has basically taken the idea of open source and added a monetary layer, this layer of value that we can exchange,specify and define. So it's been very good for the open source movement in that way. And in our case, it's helped us to align ourselves with the community members.
Whether it's an NFT sale or we're getting ready to release our metaverse. There's land distribution, which is part of that is a sale, but part of that is also through the staking mechanism. So if you're staking, you're winning land.
So the way we've aligned is we have this circle of win, which is like a certain percent of the pie is going to pixel craft to build. But there's also a rewards pool that if you're taking care of your Aavegotchi you're petting it, you're adding clothes and dressing it. The more you do that, I know, the more you do that, then the more value comes back to your Aavegotch. You have access to those rewards pools. So it's really been about aligning incentives and experimenting with that, and it's one of the most enjoyable parts of the whole kind of tug and pull of working with a decentralized organization.
[06:08]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
So another word that gets thrown around a lot is the metaverse, right?
What is Aavegotchi’s position in the metaverse? And then just generally, how do you think that that's going to keep evolving?
[06:17]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
We published our white paper originally for Aave, I guess about a year and a half ago. So that's like ancient history now. Right now, Metaverse is like whats happening right now. But even at that time we said, Look, there's the intrinsic game of the Aavegotchi. The NFT itself was a playable nft. That was the initial idea. But the roadmap also showed eventually there's an external way to interact and use your Aavegotchi with interoperability, with other Metaverses, other gaming protocols, other even defi apps. So all of that considered, it's been about a year in progress where we're building out and realizing a metaverse for Aavegotchi called the Gotchiverse. It's kind of in vogue right now. There's kind of cookie cutter, a dime a dozen type of metaverses coming out, but I'm very excited about ours because much like what we, I think our track record speaks for itself with the way we set up the NFTs and they have these layers of complexity to them and they can be pretty rich if you want 'em to be, or they can be a simple pet. With the Metaverse, we're approaching it the same way. So we took a lot of the lessons learned from what we built with the Avago and used that to inform us making hopefully a better, more engaging and more sustainable metaverse for play to earn and those type of aspects we do want to be a part of. So we're working hard on that and we're probably just a few weeks away from an alpha launch where people will be able to enter the Gotchiverse and start exploring this virtual world that is home to the Aavegotchi.
[07:47]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
Oh man, I think we got some alpha leak. That's actually really cool. You mentioned plugging into these other protocols like Aave. What are some really cool protocols that you see out there that would make sense for Aavegotchi?
[07:48]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Good Ghosting is an example of one that just recently passed, so they were also, I believe, born out of an Aave grant. What they do is align incentives for long term staking, like holding your money instead of degene spending it. Obviously the lens protocol that Stan and Aave and all them just put out. We're very interested in that. We do think of our gotchiverse as kind of a social network. I mean that the primary feature is social. So I hope that we can align with the lens protocol in a very interesting way. That's at the top of our list.
9:12
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
That's really fantastic. So, What does Avagatchi and the Gotchiverse look like in five years if everything aligned perfectly?
[09:23]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
In five years we actually do have a 30 year roadmap for the play to earn. So five is just the drop in the bucket. But yeah, we have four play to earn tokens that can be earned through Gotchiverse. Other applications that are being hosted on it. So unlike what you're familiar with Decent Central Land or some of those, we started out with a smart contract where the SDK will allow you to write a smart contract and that will actually be represented in the world as a like character you interact with. So imagine walking up to this robot and it's actually the smart contract. I hope the world's full of those types of custom builds because really it's gonna be a framework we've built that everyone else can easily contribute to and build on.
So yeah, pretty excited for that. The other side of that coin is the DAO itself, fully decentralized by then. We have a three year plan to go to full decentralization. So we started with snapshots and that kind of thing. Where we are now is getting ready to deploy different dashboards. There's been more task forces, self-organizing in our discord and they're getting control of certain multsigs over time. We're already in the middle of what we call the cocoon phase. We're moving from those kind of close gated areas where Pixel craft is kind of guiding things to. getting off the training wheels and we'll be fully decentralized where all the different contracts are controlled by multisigs that are not pixel craft within the next three years.
So that's gonna be a big part of that too.
[11:24]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
So what's the role of Pixel Craft that in the future as the DAO fully decentralizes.
[11:32]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
We're excited to just be one of many members within the DAO. That means we see ourselves as Dev house, building out whatever the DAO wants to build. Trying to add value through creating new experiences got you versus our first main contribution as Pixel craft studios. But we already have a laundry list of things we'd love to get to once we have the bandwidth and most of those all tie back into that. Gotchiverse of course. So we'll build there. But there's other mini games. I don't even like to call them mini games cuz they're not. There's other games that are coming out. Gote Miners, Liquidator Chase. There's a couple good ones. I'm gonna give shoutouts. Then there's also something called Gotchi Vault, which is really cool.
[12:47]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
So how do these builders get involved then? It sounds like you said like they're not part of Pixel Craft, they're adding value into the ecosystem. Are there grants programs to help spin them?
[13:01]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Great question. Yeah, so we have a pixel craft funded grants program right now. Then, you can apply by simply contacting us in the discord. We've given out probably about two dozen grants at this point. They range anywhere from one to $5,000. There's exceptions, we can always go higher, but we want to kind of support as many people that are enthusiastic and they're already got you. Or they're talented, like say indie game houses.
We wanna work with them and, and either do licensing deals or just support them in any way we can. So definitely the grants program. And then the DAO itself just recently launched a treasury task force, so they're kind of managing a certain pool of funds to support things that the DAO is passionate about. So part of that decentralization, the DAO itself is already starting to make some moves. So as web3 continues to gain traction and interest right from community members that want to become active participants, I think we're also starting to see the web2 institutions see that there is maybe opportunity, but also writing on the wall.
Well, we need to have some sort of web3 integration.
[14:22]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
What would a potential partnership or integration look like with an institutional gaming platform? Is there room for that? How would something like that work?
[14:32]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Yeah, so I think there's a couple different ways we've already experienced and come in contact with different game houses. They're building out indie games, maybe they're looking for publishing. We basically have a built in audience of thousands, tens of thousands that are ready to try out the games if they have Avagotchi. I think it will, only the case for this will only be greater after we have the Metaverse live, the Gotchiverse, because we've set that up in a way where we're obsessed with reducing friction and, and amplifying access. So you're gonna be able to come in and people that don't own Avagotchi are also gonna be able to participate in this.
We're not really bullish on the idea of NFT gated communities. That's kind of like a side thing. It has its use cases, but we're kind of in the opposite direction of NFT or No nft. Imagine the scholarship program with Ax Infinity without that kind of middle bureaucratic layer where they have to do background checks and make sure you join their scholarship team. What are the more exciting things that's happening with the Gotchiverse, But if that isn't, what is like one of the things that you're like super hyped with the Avagochi ecosystem, you know, in the coming year for example, or even just down the line, you're like, I just can't wait for that to happen.
For me, it would be all the features for the Got you verse coming online. So when it launches initially, it'll. Basically there's three ways to earn GHST. So you'll start with almost like a Pacman type of experience where it's, it's big Easter egg hunt. You're running around, you're looking for these tokens on the top.
The part I'm more excited about, and it won't take a year at all, it'll take an extra month, is the crafting to come in. So if you've ever played Clash of Clans, why do we need four different elements? They're raw elements. They're a hundred percent on chain as ERC-20, but you put them into a crafting table like Minecraft to instead of minting an nft, you're crafting an nft.
Think of it that way, almost like a form. It's like a forgery. In fact, you're, you're in a blacksmith shop with an anvil and you are putting together your avago NFTs. Those get installed on your parcel to help you farm and extract more from under the ground. So I'm more excited about that aspect.
The very casual play is exploring the surface, picking it up when you can. But the gameplay with crafting and farming is gonna be pretty interesting. And we're super excited about, that's why we've brought on former World of Warcraft developers, that's why we're growing the team out on that side and investing so much in cause we want to be a very good experience for everybody, something with that, you'd, you'd play whether or not you were playing to earn. That's really important to balance. So the next generation, I think, is already exploring technology in ways that were unimaginable. I think even a lot of what we're doing today is influenced by the way that the new generation, the younger generation, interacts with that technology, the demand that they're making of that technology.
I personally encourage my niece to start with starting game fi. You know, she wants to be an influencer on TikTok and all that. I was like, that's fine. But make sure that you integrate in some way the future Web3.
[16:29]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
What would be like advice to a parent, right? Or an uncle who's already like, deeply ingrained in this space and knows that there's a lot of opportunity here. Certainly someone at that age could definitely tap into it and position themselves in a way that maybe wouldn't be available down the line. What would be like a recommendation, whether it be in the Gotchiverse or just generally with game fire?
[16:50]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Yeah, that's a good point. I guess the conversation happens on crypto Twitter, so get a list and follow everybody that you should be following on crypto Twitter. Then, get involved in something either like Avago or Dark Forest or some of these games that are, not just surface level, like yeah, we're playing to earn, but they're actually like experimenting with the protocols and the smart contracts.
[18:08]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
It's funny you mentioned the youth, because I was having a conversation here at ETH Denver. A couple of the guys that are really close to the organizers and they're like, Oh, Aavegotchi. I think they actually said the same thing as you. They're like, My niece plays that. Like we give it to our kids.
So we think of ourselves as not really made for kids because there's a, that's up to the parents and when they come into learning financial, like messing with finance. But that's the financial aspect. I think it's great that anyone of any age can pick up and be financially literate like it. It's probably over the next 10 years, that's probably one of the big conversations that's gonna change is that younger and younger you're gonna have this access and understanding and exposure to financial products, and it's gonna come through crypto and web3.
[19:02]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
I personally didn't have financial literacy until my early twenties when I was like, Oh, credit card, credit scores. That's important. So it's really interesting to see how the accessibility to finance is changing overall.I'm really excited for that. I'm really excited for what Aavegotchi is doing and the positioning of it into the future and that opportunity for it also in that literacy.
[20:28]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
So, any last words? Anything else you want to add about what you're doing, your experience here at ETH Denver?
[21:03]
Jesse
Aavegotchi DAO
Yeah, East Denver has been fantastic so far. I'm glad we're not even halfway through it and I get to see. But, it has just been so nice to meet so many of the people in the space that we've met online or as, as a discord frog or something, and now we get to meet.
[21:40]
Humpty Calderon
Crypto Sapiens
I'm really excited to, you know, just dive even deeper into the ecosystem and I'm thankful to our community who connected me with you and said, Oh, this is someone you need to talk to.
And as soon as I heard the name and the project, I'm like, Yeah, obvious. That's another great example of just the community leading first. They're just out there reaching out and making the connections. So Absolutely. Yeah. I was happy to see that community advocacy in this space is everything. So obviously if you're good people and you have a good project, you know, with good fundamentals, that's not hard, right? It really just needs to be thoughtful right from the beginning. Right. You need to be honest and have some meaningful interactions with your community. Absolutely. I Couldn't agree more and so glad we were able to connect.
And that's a wrap. I truly hope you've enjoyed this conversation. If you'd like to learn more about Aavegotchi, go to Aavegotchi.com and on Twitter at avago. Thanks for listening to Crypto Sapiens. Please give us a follow like and a five star review wherever you enjoy your podcast. And stay tuned for our next discussion.