Crypto Sapiens - Jesse Johnson | Aavegotchi and Financial Accessibility Through Gaming
Primer: Aavegotchis are cute digital ghost pets. In this episode of Crypto Sapiens, host Humpty Calderon speaks with Jesse Johnson of Aavegotchi live at ETHDenver. Jesse shares about the upcoming Gotchiverse and its exciting new features, the strength of their community and the decentralization of the AavegotchiDAO, and many other topics.
Aavegotchi
An on-chain digital pet
Designed it to be very accessible to the crypto-curious
“So it's like oh, a tamagotchi, you got to take care of it. It's a digital pet. We just took that and put it on-chain.”
- Jesse Johnson
You can pet your Aavegotchis to improve their kinship scores
Have a user-friendly staking mechanism
People come into Aavegotchi and end up learning about all these different DeFi tools that are out there
The Aavegotchi Community
The community is at the centre of Aavegotchi
Have attracted solidity developers, indie game developers, and brain surgeons moonlighting in crypto
Unlike most NFT PFP projects, Aavegotchi started their tokenomics with a bonding curve, which attracted a certain type of user
Their core team at Pixelcraft consists of 35 individuals
The AavegotchiDAO have people that have proven themselves and risen to positions of leadership within the community
The community is building with the primitives of the Aavegotchi NFTs. Increasingly, DApps and other products are being built around Aavegotchi
Thoughts On The Success Of Open Source Projects
Ethereum has been very good for the open source movement
In Aavegotchi’s case, it helps them to align with the community members
Have a Circle of Win — a rewards pool that rewards users that are most engaged with their Aavegotchis (e.g. petting them, dressing Aavegotchis with wearables)
“Ethereum has basically taken the idea of open source and added a monetary layer, this layer of value, like that we can exchange and specify and define.”
- Jesse Johnson
What Is Aavegotchi’s Position In The Metaverse?
Published their original whitepaper around 1.5 years ago
Their roadmap detailed ways that Aavegotchi is interoperable with other Metaverses, gaming protocols, and DeFi apps like Aave, even before the term Metaverse became popularized
Very excited about the Gotchiverse (the Aavegotchi Metaverse) as their track record speaks for itself
The way they set up the NFTs has layers of complexities to them:
Could be pretty rich if you want them to be
Could also be a simple pet
Few weeks away from the alpha launch of the Gotchiverse
What Are Some Protocols That Would Make Sense To Be Integrated With Aavegotchi?
Recently, platforms like GoodGhosting has come in to engage and to pitch to AavegotchiDAO
What GoodGhosting does is it align incentives for long-term staking (i.e. holding your money instead of degen spending it)
They are very interested in Lens Protocol
What Does The Gotchiverse Look Like In 5 Years?
Have a 30 year roadmap for their tokenomics
They have 4 play-to-earn tokens that could be earned through the Gotchiverse that are on 30 year timelines
Hopes that the Gotchiverse will be full of life and other applications 5 years from now
Their SDK will allow people to write a smart contract that will be represented in the world as an NPC character that one could interact with
“So imagine walking up to this character named Stani, and he's ready to make a deal with you on lending, he'll offer you a rate. It's not just like a graphical front-end that sends you to their website, it's actually the smart contract directly through that NPC.”
- Jesse Johnson
The DAO would be fully decentralized by then
There are more task forces that are self-organizing in their Discord. These task forces are getting control of multisigs
Moving from Pixelcraft is guiding things —> getting off training wheels —> different multisigs are controlled by the community
The Role Of Pixelcraft When The DAO Fully Decentralizes
Excited to just be one of many members within the DAO
Will see themselves as a DApp house, building out things the DAO wants them to build
Have a laundry list of things to build for the Gotchiverse
There are other games that are coming out soon:
Gotchiminers
Lickquidator Chase
There’s something called the Gotchi Vault — an asset management for Aavegotchis
Gotchi Vault is not related to Pixelcraft
Achieved a million TVL in the first 48 hours. Currently have over $10 million worth of Aavegotchis in their smart contracts in 2-3 weeks of its launch
Are There Grant Programs To Help Builders Get Involved?
They have a Pixelcraft-funded Grants program right now
People can apply by contacting the team in the Discord
Have given out 2 dozen grants at this point
Want to support enthusiastic Gotchigang members or talented indie game houses
The DAO recently launched a Treasury Taskforce. The Taskforce is already managing a certain pool of funds to support things that the DAO is passionate about
What Would A Potential Partnership With A Gaming Platform Look Like?
Pixelcraft have already come in contact with different indie game houses
Aavegotchi have a built-in audience of thousands for them. This will grow once the Gotchiverse is live
People that do not own Aavegotchis will be able to participate as well
Currently, mini-games require an Aavegotchi to play them. With the upcoming Gotchi lending feature, people could borrow Aavegotchis to play those mini-games
Compared to Axie Infinity scholarship programs, Gotchi lending is trustless. No background checks are needed. It’s just an interaction between smart contracts
There will be a predefined split on the earnings for Gotchi lending
Features Of The Gotchiverse
💡 Gotchus Alchemica: The four tokens of the Gotchiverse. They are FUD, FOMO, ALPHA, and KEK.
There will be different ways to earn Alchemica:
A Pac Man/Easter egg hunt type of experience where Gotchis run around to collect them
Crafting installations on your parcels to extract Alchemica from under the ground
They have brought on a former World of Warcraft developer to ensure that it will be a very good experience for everybody
How Would He Recommend The Younger Generation Into GameFi?
Get a list and follow everybody that you should be following on Crypto Twitter
Get involved in something like Aavegotchi or Dark Forest that are not surface level and are actually experimenting with protocols and smart contracts. This will help them to quickly gain an understanding of staking, bridging, etc.
“I think it's great that anyone any age can pick up and be financially literate. It's probably over the next 10 years, that's probably one of the big conversations is going to change is that younger and younger, you're going to have this access and understanding and exposure to financial products, and it's gonna come through crypto and Web3.”
- Jesse Johnson
His Experience At ETHDenver
ETHDenver has been fantastic
Will be doing an outreach for Aavegotchi. People can come and try out the Gotchiverse demo
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